Checklist · reviewed September 2026
Most narrow patents start as thin disclosures.
Scope is decided long before claim drafting. If the variants, ranges, and fallbacks were never written down, they cannot be claimed later — and that is the usual reason a patent turns out to protect less than the inventor expected.
01
The problem
- What fails today, and under what conditions
- Who suffers from it and what it costs them
- How the problem is currently handled and why that is inadequate
02
The mechanism
- What your solution does, step by step or part by part
- Why it works — the physical, chemical, biological, or computational reason
- The single sentence that captures the technical contribution
03
Embodiments
- The best version you have built or would build
- At least two alternative ways of achieving the same effect
- The minimum version that still solves the problem
04
Variants and ranges
- Materials, components, or algorithms that could be substituted
- Numerical ranges: temperature, pressure, concentration, timing, tolerance
- What happens at the edges of those ranges
05
Evidence
- Test data, measurements, or simulations supporting the effect
- Comparison against the current approach
- Repeatability: how many times, under what conditions
06
Context
- Closest published work you already know about
- Competitor products that come near
- Anything you have read that made you think "someone may already have this"
07
Housekeeping
- Everyone who contributed to the inventive concept, not the project
- Ownership: employment, studentship, funding, and collaboration terms
- Every date the work has been or will be made public
Write it before you need it. A disclosure written while the work is fresh is consistently better than one reconstructed months later for a filing deadline.
Keep it confidential
A disclosure document is not a filing and creates no rights. Circulating it publicly can be a disclosure that counts against you. Share it under confidentiality only.