Invention Disclosure: What to Submit to a TTO

An invention disclosure is the internal report a researcher submits to their institution’s technology transfer office (TTO) describing a new discovery, method, material, or piece of software before any patent application is filed or any public disclosure is planned. It is the trigger event for everything that follows in technology transfer: patentability screening, inventorship determination, the institution’s decision on whether to pursue IP protection, and, where federal funding is involved, the compliance clock that the Bayh-Dole Act attaches to federally funded inventions.

This guide covers what an invention disclosure form actually asks for, what happens to it once submitted, and why the timing of disclosure — both to the TTO internally and, downstream, to any federal funding agency — is not a formality but a set of deadlines with real legal consequences.

What counts as a disclosable invention

Institutions generally ask researchers to submit a disclosure as soon as they believe they have something new and useful: a novel compound, device, method, algorithm, piece of software, or biological material with potential value outside the lab where it was created. The disclosure obligation typically applies regardless of whether the researcher intends to seek a patent — TTOs also want to know about non-patentable but licensable assets such as research tools, datasets, or copyrightable software, since those can still be commercialized through licensing.

Most university and research-institution IP policies require disclosure before any public disclosure of the invention — a conference talk, poster, journal submission, thesis defense, or even a detailed grant progress report can each count as a public disclosure that starts the clock described below. Disclosing internally to the TTO first, even in preliminary form, is what lets the office assess whether a patent application needs to be filed before that public disclosure happens.

What an invention disclosure form typically contains

Forms vary by institution, but nearly all cover the same core elements, because they all have to answer the same downstream questions about inventorship, ownership, and funding:

Inventors. Full legal names, department/affiliation, contact information, and citizenship (citizenship can matter for export-control screening on certain technologies). Inventorship here is a specific legal question — who actually conceived the claimed subject matter — not simply who worked on the project or who is listed as an author on a related paper.
Title and description of the invention. What it is, what problem it solves, and how it differs from what already exists. This section is what the TTO and, later, a patent attorney use for an initial prior-art and patentability check.
Conception and reduction-to-practice dates. When the idea was first conceived and when it was first actually built, tested, or otherwise reduced to practice (or when a complete, enabling description was written down). These dates matter for establishing an accurate priority record, even though under the America Invents Act’s first-inventor-to-file system the operative date for most purposes is the filing date, not the conception date.
Funding sources. Every grant, contract, and internal funding source that supported the work, including agency name and award/grant number. This field is what determines whether the invention is a “subject invention” under the Bayh-Dole Act (35 U.S.C. 200-212) — see below — and whether it needs to be reported through a system like iEdison.
Disclosure and publication history/plans. Any past or planned talks, posters, manuscripts, theses, or other public disclosures, with dates. This is the single most time-sensitive field on the form: a planned publication date sitting a few weeks out can force the TTO to file a provisional patent application on a compressed timeline.
Known prior art and related work. Anything the inventors are aware of that resembles the invention — competing products, prior publications, or earlier patents.
Third-party materials or agreements. Any materials received under a material transfer agreement (MTA), industry sponsorship, or other agreement that might carry its own IP terms affecting ownership.
Potential applications and commercial interest. Known or suspected commercial uses, and whether any companies have already expressed interest — useful for the TTO’s initial commercial-potential triage, covered in the guide on patent licensing.

Why timing matters: two clocks start running at disclosure

Invention disclosure sits at the intersection of two separate deadline structures, and researchers who submit late, or who publicly disclose before submitting, can compress or lose the institution’s options under both.

The patent-novelty clock (35 U.S.C. 102)

Under U.S. patent law, a public disclosure, sale, or public use of an invention can start a statutory bar running against patentability. Under the America Invents Act’s first-inventor-to-file framework, an inventor’s own public disclosure generally opens a one-year grace period during which that same inventor can still file a U.S. patent application without their own disclosure counting as invalidating prior art against them — but that grace period is a U.S.-specific safety net, not a universal one, and it does nothing to protect foreign filing rights in most other jurisdictions, which generally require absolute novelty at the time of filing. For a full treatment of this, see the guide on 35 U.S.C. § 102 and invention disclosure timing.

Practically, this means: the earlier a researcher discloses internally, relative to any planned public disclosure, the more runway the TTO has to evaluate the invention, decide whether to file, and prepare a provisional patent application before the public disclosure happens — rather than scrambling to file in the days before a conference talk or paper goes out.

The Bayh-Dole compliance clock

If any part of the work was supported by federal funding, the invention is very likely a “subject invention” under the Bayh-Dole Act, and a separate, regulatory deadline structure applies on top of the patent-law one. The standard patent rights clause implementing Bayh-Dole, at 37 CFR 401.14, requires the institution to disclose each subject invention to the funding federal agency within two months of the inventor’s written disclosure to the institution’s own patent-matters personnel (in practice, the TTO). This is why the date a researcher actually submits their internal disclosure form is not just an administrative timestamp — it is the date that starts the institution’s own two-month federal-reporting clock.

Institutions typically make this agency-facing disclosure through iEdison, the interagency system used across federal agencies for Bayh-Dole invention reporting; see the guide on iEdison invention reporting for how that reporting step works. From there, the institution generally has up to two years from disclosing to the funding agency to formally elect whether to retain title to the invention under 37 CFR 401.14(c)(2) — though that window can be compressed to as little as 60 days before the end of the one-year statutory patent-novelty bar if a public disclosure has already started that clock running. In other words, a late internal disclosure, combined with an imminent public disclosure, can squeeze both the patent-filing decision and the Bayh-Dole election-of-title decision into the same narrow window. For background on the Act itself, see the Bayh-Dole Act dictionary entry.

What happens after a disclosure is submitted

Submitting the form starts an internal TTO workflow that typically runs through several stages, though the exact structure and committee involvement varies by institution:

Intake and completeness check. The TTO confirms the form is complete enough to act on — missing inventor information or funding-source detail is a common reason for delay at this stage.
Inventorship review. A legal question, not a courtesy question: who actually contributed to the conception of the claimed invention, distinct from who contributed general lab work, funding, or supervision. Getting this wrong can create defects in a later patent’s validity or in the chain of title.
Prior-art and patentability screening. An initial, often internal, search to assess whether the invention appears novel and non-obvious, before committing to the cost of outside patent counsel.
Commercial-potential assessment. A judgment call on market size, competitive landscape, and whether a licensee or startup path looks viable — this is where TTOs decide whether the invention justifies the cost of a patent filing at all.
Filing decision. If the office decides to pursue protection, it typically files a provisional patent application first when a filing deadline is close, preserving a priority date while a full non-provisional application and licensing strategy are developed.

This intake-through-filing workflow, along with the docketing and case-management systems TTOs use to track disclosures at scale, is the day-to-day operational core of a technology transfer office — distinct from the patent-law questions covered in patentability guides and the statutory Bayh-Dole deadlines covered above.

Common timing mistakes

Disclosing to the TTO only after a paper is already submitted. By then, a public-disclosure clock may already be running, and in many non-U.S. jurisdictions that submission can itself be an absolute-novelty-defeating disclosure once published.
Treating a grant progress report or conference abstract as “not really public.” Institutional review committees, funding-agency-visible reports, and conference abstracts can all count as public disclosure depending on their accessibility — when in doubt, researchers should disclose internally before any of these go out, not after.
Leaving funding-source fields incomplete. Omitting a federal grant number doesn’t remove the Bayh-Dole obligation if the invention was in fact conceived or first reduced to practice under that award — it just means the institution finds out later, closer to (or after) its two-month reporting deadline.
Assuming disclosure equals a filed patent. Submitting the form starts the institution’s evaluation; it does not itself file anything. Researchers who assume protection exists the moment they disclose sometimes proceed with public presentations before the TTO has actually made a filing decision.

Frequently asked questions

Does submitting an invention disclosure automatically start a patent application?

No. The disclosure form starts the institution’s internal evaluation — inventorship review, prior-art screening, and a commercial-potential assessment — not a patent filing itself. The TTO makes a separate decision about whether and when to file, often a provisional application first if a public-disclosure deadline is close.

Who owns an invention disclosed to the TTO?

This is governed by institutional IP policy (most research universities require faculty, staff, and often students to assign invention rights to the institution as a condition of employment or enrollment) rather than by the disclosure form itself. Where federal funding is involved, Bayh-Dole then governs the additional layer of obligations that attach to the institution’s ownership.

What if the invention wasn’t funded by a federal grant?

Bayh-Dole applies only to inventions conceived or first actually reduced to practice using federal funding. An invention made entirely with private or internal funds still typically needs to be disclosed under institutional policy, but it is not a Bayh-Dole “subject invention,” and no iEdison reporting obligation applies to it.

How soon before a planned publication should a researcher submit a disclosure?

As early as possible once the researcher believes the work is novel and useful — ideally weeks, not days, before any planned talk, poster, or manuscript submission, since the TTO needs time to screen the invention and, if warranted, prepare a provisional filing before that disclosure becomes public.

For the broader institutional workflow this disclosure feeds into, see the technology transfer pillar page, or the related guides on filing a provisional patent application and non-disclosure agreements in technology transfer.