Anant,

Please don’t confuse what you are submitting to EN with what we’re talking about in an inventors notebook. They are in no way the same.
Inventors have used paper notebooks for many years to document the dates and nuances of the inventing process. When filled out correctly, this notebook has held up in court many times as proof of the date you invented something. However, it MUST be filled out correctly.

Lately some people have noted that with the new patent laws the notebook is obsolete – not true, first, that section of the new law does not take effect for 18 months from the day the President signed the bill. So anything you do in those 18 months is the same as you have been doing it for many years. Second, 18 months from now the new “First Inventor to File” rules will require some proof that you are the inventor prior to filing the patent application. Working under the assumption that only the inventor would record the nuances of the inventing journey a well documented inventor’s notebook could be very instrumental in any challenge to who in fact was the First Inventor to file.

What you are doing with EN is simply entering a document in a database, that has nothing to do with how the courts view the use of a notebook, and even less to do with proving you were the inventor or when you may have invented it.

Get yourself a good notebook (not spiral bound) and learn the proper way to document it, short of an awarded patent it’s the only court tested way to prove when you invented something.

FYI there’s a recent thread on this subject here…

edisonnation.com/forums/other/topics/electronic-inventors-notebook

No Anant it is not required. EN has everything, you do not have to worry. (Toni)

I have never made a hard copy of anything that I submitted. Is it required. Isn’t my submission to EN proof enough.
One thing I always wonder is that after I save, if I reedit, my older history of changes is lost.
Is there any proof of each iteration of my changes. Does EN maintain it?

Why this is important in this context is that, one can write a one liner 1 year back, and then add all the innovative ideas over an year. One year down the line, one might claim that one wrote everything on day 1, and made very minor changes. What’s the proof that the changes were not done inbetween. Since it can’t be proven, does this not mean that a person who has really written everything one year before, and made a letter change an year later, has no proof of invention date.

Scary?

Thanks for the reply. I guess an Inventor eNotebook is an idea in itself.

Hi Jeffrey,

Currently there are no digital Inventors Notebooks that have been tested in court the way hard copy notebooks have over the years. Given this proven track record, I would probably continue using a properly documented paper notebook to record your ideas. (you can find out how it should be documented on the UIA Daily Inventor Blog)