Disclose before publishing
Contact Research & Sponsored Programs when a potentially novel device, process, material, design, plant variety, or piece of software has a practical use—and before a paper, poster, thesis defense, sale, public demo, or repository release. Disclosure is an internal evaluation step, not a patent application.
What the disclosure captures
The form identifies contributors, funding and facility use, relevant agreements, the problem solved, how the work differs from what came before, public-disclosure dates, and companies already interested. List everyone who contributed to the inventive concept; authorship, employment, and inventorship are related but not identical.
How evaluation works
Staff review ownership obligations, sponsor terms, prior art, technical readiness, public benefit, market pathways, patentability, and likely protection cost. Options include patenting, copyright licensing, open-source release, assignment to the creator, publication without protection, or more development before a decision.
Students, teams, and sponsors
Student ownership depends on employment, sponsored work, signed terms, and the kind of university resources used—not merely enrollment. Team projects should discuss authorship, confidentiality, portfolio use, and sponsor expectations at the start. When facts are uncertain, disclose them.
Fictional information
UW–Porter Falls is a work of parody. Every office, service, phone number, policy, and statistic on this page is invented; nothing here describes a real institution or a service you can actually contact.