Idea Disclosure Template
A free, plain-language form to capture a technical idea before you take it to a patent attorney. Read it below, copy it, or download it.
The inventor's paper trail
What an idea disclosure is
An idea disclosure is a structured record of a technical idea: what it is, the problem it solves, how it works, and who helped build it. It is the first step most inventors take before a patent conversation. Filling it in early, in your own words, gives a patent attorney a clear technical starting point and creates a dated record of what you built. A dated record is not a patent filing and does not establish filing priority.
This template uses plain language on purpose. You do not need to know patent vocabulary or decide anything about protection to use it. It is engineering documentation, not legal advice. A patent attorney decides what, if anything, is worth protecting. Work through it top to bottom; fill in what you can. Nothing here needs to be perfect.
An idea disclosure is not the same as an invention disclosure form. That is a separate, patent-oriented document a patent practitioner works with, and it carries legal framing an idea disclosure deliberately avoids. Start here, in plain language, and let your attorney decide what comes next.
The Template
Your Idea
Idea Name
A short working name for the idea (an internal label, not a formal title). Example: "Repository-Aware Model Routing."
In a Sentence or Two
Describe the idea the way you'd tell a colleague what you built and what it does.
The Problem It Solves
What technical problem, bottleneck, inefficiency, failure mode, or limitation does this address? What was hard, slow, or broken before?
How It Works
Explain the technical approach in practical detail: the components, data, rules, models, prompts, thresholds, and how they interact. What happens first, next, and last? What are the key inputs and outputs?
The Broader Idea
Step back from the specific code: what is the reusable technical insight? What would someone need to understand to rebuild this approach in another system? Which parts are essential, and which are just one way to do it?
Other Ways It Could Work
Other ways the same idea could be built, configured, adapted, or extended, alternative architectures, algorithms, models, data sources, workflows, or fallbacks. These need not be built or preferred.
What's Better Because of It
The technical benefits or expected improvements, speed, latency, compute or memory use, accuracy, reliability, security, scalability, cost, developer or user workflow. Measurements help but are not required.
Current Status
Where is this today? (Identified by a scan · Confirmed / prototype · Built, not deployed · Deployed internally · Released to users · Partly built · Deprecated · Unsure)
Where It's Used and Where Else It Could Apply
Where is this idea used today, and where else could the same approach apply? Name the products, features, services, internal tools, or workflows it powers now, plus adjacent areas it could extend to.
Have You Shared It?
Sharing an idea publicly can affect what is possible later. This is factual context only, no legal classification is asked of you.
Shared Outside Your Company? (No / Yes / Unsure)
Has this idea, its code, a demo, a repo, or a product using it been shared, shown, sold, offered, published, or open-sourced outside your organization? Include public and private sharing.
What Was Shared, and Roughly When?
Briefly: what was shared, with whom, roughly when, and whether it was public or kept confidential. Approximate dates are fine.
Any Sharing Planned Soon? (No / Yes / Unsure)
Is any public release, sale, demo, publication, or open-source release planned in the near future? If timing matters, note it here.
Supporting Details
Related Approaches You Know Of
Without searching, list any tools, products, systems, papers, open-source projects, or internal systems you already know about that are related. "None known" is fine.
Who Helped
People who contributed to the idea, design, implementation, testing, or problem-solving, name, role, organization, and contribution. For your records; this does not decide legal inventorship.
Evidence, Examples, or Results
Examples, screenshots, logs, benchmark results, test data, before-and-after outputs, charts, notebooks, or engineering notes that help support the idea.
Other Materials
Diagrams, flowcharts, architecture drawings, whiteboard photos, UI mockups, specs, or design docs that help explain the idea.
Public/Private and Third-Party Materials
Is the related code public or private? Does it use any third-party libraries, APIs, models, datasets, SDKs, or vendor tools? Include names, versions, or licenses if you know them.
Timeline
Approximate dates where you have them (exact is better): conception, first written description, first working version, first test or benchmark, first internal use, first outside sharing, and the next planned release.
What Didn't Work
Approaches you tried that failed, and why. A failed obvious approach often shows why the one you chose matters.
Open Questions
Anything unresolved or uncertain, missing data, unclear contributor history, unknown dependencies, or things to raise with your team.
Optional appendix: software & AI details
Fill these in only if your invention is software or AI. They capture the engineering detail a scan surfaces and an attorney will ask about. Skip anything that doesn't apply.
If it's software
Repository & Version
Repo, branch, commit SHA, tag, and release version that embody the concept. The first commit or pull request where it appeared, if you can find it.
Modules & Interfaces
The files, modules, services, and APIs involved, and what talks to what.
Algorithm & Data
Pseudocode or the key algorithm steps; important data structures and state transitions; inputs, outputs, and error handling.
Thresholds & Configuration
Thresholds, heuristics, rules, and config values that matter. Note which are examples and which are essential.
Baseline & Measurement
The baseline you improved on and the measured improvement (latency, throughput, accuracy, memory, cost). Note failure modes and edge cases.
Dependencies & Licenses
Cloud services, SDKs, APIs, libraries, and models you depend on; open-source package names, versions, and licenses; any contractor- or customer-supplied code.
If it uses AI or machine learning
Model & Data
Base model and version. Training, fine-tuning, retrieval, or evaluation datasets, with their provenance and permissions.
Orchestration Logic
Prompt or system-instruction structure; routing, ranking, scoring, or guardrail logic; where a human reviews.
Evaluation
Evaluation metrics and benchmark baselines; known model failure modes.
Where the Novelty Lives
Is the distinctive part in the model, the data, the orchestration, the evaluation, the interface, or the deployment architecture? Say which.
Two things worth capturing
- Did AI coding tools help build it? Note which tools (Copilot, Claude, Cursor) and what they did. It does not decide anything, but who, and what, contributed can matter for who is named as an inventor. Background: AI and patent inventorship.
- Write down any public dates. A GitHub release, talk, or demo can affect patent rights, and the rules differ by country: the US allows a limited grace period after your own disclosure, while much of the world (including Europe) generally does not. Capture the dates; a patent attorney weighs the timing.
How a disclosure differs from a patent filing
An idea disclosure is not a patent, and it is not a filing. Here is where it sits relative to the things it is most often confused with. This is general information, not legal advice: a patent attorney decides what fits your situation.
| Idea disclosure (this form) | Provisional application | Non-provisional application | Defensive publication | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | An internal record of your idea, in your own words. Not filed anywhere. | A placeholder filing with the USPTO. Never examined; never becomes a patent on its own. | The full application the USPTO actually examines. | Deliberately publishing the idea so it becomes prior art. |
| Filed with the USPTO? | No. | Yes. | Yes. | No (published elsewhere). |
| Typical USPTO fee (2026) | None. | $65 micro / $130 small / $325 large entity. | Higher: filing, search, and examination fees, usually plus attorney fees. | None (the cost is the publishing venue). |
| What it gets you | A clear, dated starting point for a patent conversation. | An earlier priority date and up to 12 months to decide. | Examination, and potentially a granted patent. | Blocks others from patenting the same idea; gives you no exclusive rights. |
| Time pressure | None, do it early. | 12-month clock to file a non-provisional. | Prosecution can take years. | Immediate once published, and public for good. |
Fees are USPTO amounts confirmed for 2026 and can change. Which route fits, if any, is a decision for a patent attorney.
Fill it in automatically (coming soon)
Our platform will let you generate an idea disclosure straight from a code scan, the scanner prefills what it found, you correct and expand it, then export. Until it launches, use the template above.
In the meantime: run the Concept Scanner to surface the distinctive concepts in your code, or read how to write a strong disclosure.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is an idea disclosure the same as an invention disclosure form?
No. An idea disclosure is a plain-language record you write to capture a technical idea. An invention disclosure form is a separate, patent-oriented document that a patent practitioner works with, and it carries legal framing this template deliberately avoids. Start with the idea disclosure; your attorney decides whether an invention disclosure form comes next.
Is an idea disclosure the same as a provisional patent application?
No. An idea disclosure is an internal record that captures the idea in your own words; a provisional patent application is a filing with the USPTO that establishes a priority date. The disclosure usually comes first and gives your attorney the material to prepare a filing. Filling out a disclosure does not file anything or start any clock.
Does filling out an idea disclosure protect my idea?
Not by itself. A disclosure documents and organizes your idea; it is not a filing and does not create patent rights. Whether and how to protect it is a decision a patent attorney makes. The value of the disclosure is a clear, dated record your attorney can work from.
Do I own inventions I built at work?
It depends on your employment or contractor agreement and your jurisdiction; many agreements assign work-related inventions to the employer. This template does not decide ownership, it captures the facts (who contributed, under what agreement) so ownership can be sorted out with counsel.
Should I sign and date the disclosure?
Recording who contributed and roughly when is useful context. Under the US first-inventor-to-file system the filing date matters most, but dated records still help with inventorship and derivation questions. A witnessed signature is optional and worth discussing with your attorney.
Can I share a completed disclosure under an NDA?
Sharing under a written confidentiality agreement is generally safer than sharing publicly, but any external sharing can have consequences and the rules differ by country. Keep the filled-in form confidential, don't commit it to a public repo, and ask a patent attorney before sharing it outside a confidentiality agreement.
Scope. Completing this template does not create patent rights, establish a filing date, or decide inventorship or ownership. Rules can differ by country.
Disclaimer. This template is used solely to document, organize, and describe a technical idea. It and any output are for informational and technical-documentation purposes only and are not a substitute for advice from qualified intellectual property counsel. Use of this template does not constitute legal services or legal, patent, patentability, inventorship, ownership, claim-drafting, filing-strategy, deadline, or freedom-to-operate advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship with Obviously Not. Intellectual-property protection can be time-sensitive: public disclosure, product release, open-source publication, sale, offer for sale, demo, or other external sharing may affect available rights. You are solely responsible for promptly consulting qualified intellectual property counsel about any legal or IP issue.