patents
Are inventions patentable AFTER they are published?
<p>Dropout was a technique introduced publically in 2012 by Geoffrey Hinton. Notably, he and his research team filed for <a href="https://patents.google.com/patent/WO2014105866A1" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this patent</a> in 2013.</p>

<p>I'm not sure how this is allowed. They did invent it, but they disclosed their invention prior to the patent application.</p>

<p>The general answer is no, you cannot patent an invention after it is publicly disclosed.</p>

<p>An exception exists in a few countries (notably the US and Australia, the relevance of which will come up shortly). In these countries, if a patent application is filed within 12 months of an inventor's public disclosure, the inventor's public disclosure doesn't count as prior art. This is called the "grace period".</p>

<p>The case you refer to is quite instructive as to how grace periods work.</p>

<p>The international examiner cited a few publications by the inventors as depriving the claims of novelty. In other words, the international examiner had the same view as you that the inventors disclosed their invention before a patent application was filed.</p>

<p>However, because this disclosure was within the 12 months before the application was filed, the disclosure does not count as prior art in countries where there is a grace period.</p>

<p>There is therefore a US patent application (and granted patent) corresponding to this application. This was not affected by the inventors' disclosures.</p>

<p>In addition, Google appears to have filed an Australian national phase application, ostensibly since Australia has a 12 month grace period. This is questionable though, since the first disclosure was dated 3 July 2012, but the Australian application is deemed filed on 23 December 2013 (the filing date of the PCT application, well after 12 months from the disclosure). I can only speculate that they misunderstood how the Australian grace period works, though of course they may have other reasons for filing there.</p>

<p>Notably, no national phase entry was filed in Europe, China, or any other jurisdiction without a grace period.</p>
