Filing Deadline Guide
Published Research? You Have One Year to File a Patent.
Under US patent law, you get exactly one year from the date of your first public disclosure to file a patent application. After that deadline, the right to file is permanently lost — no extensions, no exceptions.
What Counts as a Public Disclosure?
More than you might think. Any of the following can start the one-year clock:
Journal publication
Any published paper — PubMed, IEEE, Nature, Science, or any indexed journal. The publication date starts the clock.
Preprint upload
Uploading to arXiv, bioRxiv, medRxiv, or any preprint server counts as a disclosure — even before peer review.
Conference presentation
Oral presentations, poster sessions, and slide decks shared at conferences — even if no paper was published afterward.
Thesis or dissertation
A publicly defended thesis or one deposited in a university library is a disclosure, even if nobody reads it.
Grant abstracts
SBIR/STTR award abstracts published on NIH RePORTER or NSF Award Search become public disclosures. Many researchers don't realize this.
Open-source release
Publishing code, datasets, or technical specifications on GitHub, Zenodo, or institutional repositories.
What Happens If You Miss the Deadline?
It’s permanent. Once the one-year window closes, your publication becomes “prior art” against you. This means you can no longer patent the work you disclosed — and neither can anyone else. The filing opportunity is gone forever. There are no appeals, no extensions, and no exceptions to this rule.
This is different from most academic deadlines. There is no “late submission” option. If the work has commercial value — or if you want to license it, spin out a company, or simply protect your ability to control how it’s used — the time to act is now.
What You Can Do Right Now
Check your deadline
Use our 102(b) deadline calculator to find out exactly how many days you have left. Enter the date of your earliest public disclosure.
Talk to a patent attorney — for free
Most patent attorneys offer a free initial consultation. They can tell you whether your work is patentable and what it would cost to file. If you have federal funding (NIH, NSF, SBIR), your grant may cover the cost entirely through TABA funds.
Consider a provisional application
A provisional patent application costs a fraction of a full filing and buys you 12 additional months. It establishes your priority date while you and your attorney figure out the full filing strategy. If your deadline is approaching, this is often the fastest path to preserving your rights.
What About International Patents?
Important: The one-year grace period is a US exception. Most countries — including Europe, China, Japan, and Korea — have no grace period at all. Any public disclosure before filing destroys your patent rights in those countries entirely.
If international protection matters for your work, talk to an attorney before making any public disclosure. Once a paper or preprint is published, your international filing options may already be limited.
Check your filing deadline
Enter your publication or disclosure date and see exactly how much time you have left.
Open the Deadline Calculator