Defensive publications are often viewed as an afterthought, but a proactive and purposeful defensive publishing practice can be a meaningful part of a comprehensive patent strategy. Today, many companies are using the defensive publication of technical disclosures as a low-cost technique to create freedom of action for themselves and others. And now, a new platform called TDCommons lets them do that for free.
As background, a defensive publication is a public disclosure that prevents others from patenting the same invention in the future by putting more technical information in the public domain, resulting in the generation of “prior art.” Defensive publications can originate from a variety of sources, including product marketing materials, papers presented at conferences, and internal invention disclosures. Making more prior art available to patent examiners helps ensure that patents that do issue are new and non-obvious, which promotes greater patent quality.
As the number of patents that issue each year rises worldwide, so do the costs associated with building a strong IP portfolio. Cost-effective risk mitigation is a significant benefit of defensive publications. A defensive publication is a low-cost avenue to obtain continued freedom to use an innovation, and a portfolio of defensive publications can be an effective supplement to patents in helping guard a company against patent assertions.
Technical Disclosure Commons (“TDCommons”) was developed as a new way to defensively publish technical ideas. It’s a free and user-friendly platform that hosts over 1,500 publications and is growing fast. The goal of TDCommons is to make it easier for companies to make their defensive publications available to the public and patent offices around the world. It’s not just free to publish on TDCommons, but it’s also free to access the documents, which are indexed and surfaced by any search tool, such as Google Patents.
TDCommons users currently include several large and mid-size companies across a variety of industries including software, hardware, semiconductors, and automotive. As more companies join, the TDCommons library grows, bringing even more value to its members and advancing innovation for all. If you are interested in using TDCommons, or just learning more, please visit the TDCommons website or email us at info@tdcommons.org.
Berkeley Electronic Press (Bepress) maintains TDCommons with financial support from Google.
About the Authors
Kara Shure is Chief of Staff of Google’s Portfolio Strategy team, focusing on defining and implementing Google’s global patent portfolio strategy. Kara also works on defensive publication efforts, including TDCommons. Kara received her B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Santa Cruz and is currently pursuing an M.A. in Food Studies at NYU.
Anjali Behal is patent counsel at Google. Her responsibilities include building and managing a patent portfolio, advising on commercial deals and standards issues, and licensing and acquiring patents. Anjali also leads the defensive publication program at Google, which includes sharing TDCommons with the industry at large. Anjali received her B.S. in Computer Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and her J.D. from the University of Texas School of Law.