The Confidentiality Problem: Unfiled Inventions and Consumer AI Tools

Here is a scene that plays out in a lot of companies. An engineer has a promising idea that has not been filed. They want to explain it clearly, so they paste the design into a free chat tool and ask it to help write a summary. It does a good job. Nobody thinks about it again.

That may turn out to be fine. It may not. The point is that nobody made a decision. This post explains why the question deserves one and what a practical policy looks like. Whether any specific use creates a legal problem depends on the facts and is a question for your patent counsel.

Why it can matter

Two things are at stake with an unfiled invention.

• Filing options. Patent rights depend on what has been made available to the public and when. Some countries offer limited grace periods after a disclosure. Many do not.
• Trade secret status. If the company decides not to patent something, protection may depend on having taken reasonable steps to keep it confidential.

Consumer AI tools vary in how they handle what users submit. Depending on the provider, the plan, and the account settings, inputs may be retained, reviewed, or used to improve the service. Business and enterprise plans often offer different terms. The details change, so read the current terms rather than relying on memory.

The real risk is inconsistency

In our experience the bigger issue is rarely a single dramatic leak. It is that a company cannot say what its practice was. During diligence or a dispute, "we didn't have a rule" is an uncomfortable answer. A clear, followed policy is evidence of reasonable care, and it is far easier to put in place now than to reconstruct later.

A practical policy in three tiers

1. Approved for confidential technical material. Tools under a company agreement with terms your legal team has reviewed. Unfiled inventions may be used here, within the rules counsel sets.
2. Approved for general work only. Fine for public information, boilerplate, and non-sensitive code. Not for unfiled inventions, roadmap details, or customer data.
3. Not approved. Personal accounts and tools nobody has reviewed.

Pair the tiers with one plain rule engineers can remember: if it might be an invention and it has not been filed, it stays in tier one.

When something already went into the wrong tool

It happens. Don't punish the person who reports it, or nobody will report the next one. Record what was shared, when, in which tool, and under which account type. Then bring it to patent counsel quickly, since the options can depend on timing. Our updated invention disclosure form includes a question for exactly this.

Do the boring parts

• Publish the list of approved tools somewhere engineers will actually see it
• Default company accounts to the most protective settings available
• Revisit the list when providers change their terms
• Mention the rule during onboarding and in the release checklist

The bottom line

AI tools are useful for invention work, and banning them outright rarely works. The goal is to make sure unfiled inventions go only where the company has decided they can go. For the bigger picture, see our company playbook for AI-assisted inventions. And if you'd like help putting this in place, reach out.