The IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin was a technical publication

Publication

To publish is to make content available to the public. While specific use of the term may vary among countries, it is usually applied to text, images, or other audio-visual content on any medium, including paper or electronic publishing forms such as websites, e-books, Compact Discs and MP3s...

 produced by IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

 between 1958 and 1998. The purpose of the Bulletin was to disclose invention

Invention

An invention is a novel composition, device, or process. An invention may be derived from a pre-existing model or idea, or it could be independently conceived, in which case it may be a radical breakthrough. In addition, there is cultural invention, which is an innovative set of useful social...

s that IBM did not want their competitors to get patent

Patent

A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....

s on. The Bulletin was a form of defensive publication

Defensive publication

A defensive publication, or defensive disclosure, is an intellectual property strategy used to prevent another party from obtaining a patent on a product, apparatus or method for instance. The strategy consists in disclosing an enabling description and/or drawing of the product, apparatus or method...

. By publishing the details of how to make and use the invention, patent examiners could have a searchable source of prior art

Prior art

Prior art , in most systems of patent law, constitutes all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality...

 that they could cite against subsequent patent application

Patent application

A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for the invention described and claimed by that application. An application consists of a description of the invention , together with official forms and correspondence relating to the application...

s filed by others on the same or similar inventions.

The Bulletin has been cited over 48,000 times in various US patents.

External links

• IBM notice regarding the availability of the IBM technical disclosures
• Searchable web site for IBM Technical Disclosure Bulletin articles www.delphion.com (This is a commercial web site. Registration may be required)