Skip to content
Over the past few years, we’ve spent a lot of time talking with IP counsel and innovation leaders inside enterprises around the same frustration. Their R&D and engineering teams are clearly solving problems and inventing new products every once in a while. However, not even half of that work reaches the IP team as invention disclosures.
So we started asking why and noted down the reasons. It came down to seven recurring reasons, and from what we can see, each of them is a capture problem. Below, we have listed each of them, and even shared one system that can fix these problems.
“I didn’t even know this counted as an invention.”
This is probably the most honest response you’ll hear when you ask why someone didn’t disclose an idea.
A lot of employees simply don’t know what qualifies as a patentable invention.
They assume inventions need to be massive, world-changing breakthroughs. But the truth?
Many valuable patents are tiny improvements or novel combinations.
Like a software engineer who adjusts a logistics algorithm to save 3% in fuel usage. But since no one thought to file that, it ends up becoming a core feature in a competitor’s product later.
That’s what we call an innovation capture barrier.
The knowledge is there, but it never makes it to legal or IP teams.
Bureaucracy is a dream-killer
Imagine an engineer logging into the IP portal and finding a 15-field invention form filled with legal jargon.
It takes 40 minutes to fill, and there’s no clarity on what happens next.
So they close the tab and never return.
If your process feels more like a chore than a contribution, your team WILL avoid it. That’s one of the biggest invention disclosure challenges we hear across industries.
Your invention submission software should feel like a collaboration tool, not a government form.
For example, a global company we worked with cut their disclosure form from 18 fields to 7 and added tooltips and a one-click disclosure option.
The result was disclosure submissions increased by over 50% % in just 3 months.
“I submitted one last year. Never heard back.”
Feedback loops matter. When inventors take the time to submit an idea and hears nothing back, they learn one thing: the system is a black hole.
That silence is more damaging than rejection. Because now, they assume their ideas don’t matter. The result is fewer submissions, and low invention disclosure rate becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fix the loop.
Not manually. The focus should be on establishing a systematized, transparent loop that treats inventors like valued collaborators, not passive submitters. This system should be able to:
- Send auto-updates at each stage of review.
- Let inventors track status like they would an online order.
- Give feedback, even when ideas don’t move forward.
This is one place where the right invention disclosure software does the work for you. In fact, tools like InspireIP can help an inventor see where their disclosure sits and why a decision went the way it did, without waiting forever to get a reply from the review team. Reviewers can leave comments inside the record itself, so a rejection arrives with a reason attached to it.
While you wait to implement a system in place, why make them wait? You can start organization-wide email chains sharing what happened with past ideas. You can cover themes like – Top Idea submission of the week, which one got converted into a patent filing, who contributed to a product feature update. That’s employee invention disclosure motivation right there.
Related Read: How to get buy-in for your ideas?
Lack of incentives = lack of interest
At the end of the day, people want to know ‘What’s in it for me?’
To submit invention disclosures, they give their time, thoughts, and efforts. If that investment isn’t matched with recognition or reward, engagement drops fast.
Incentives don’t have to be massive; they just have to be meaningful. Here are a few ideas you can apply:
- Internal leaderboards for most ideas submitted or implemented
- Contribution badges on internal profiles or dashboards
- Points systems redeemable for time-off, gear, or experiences
- KPIs that connect invention disclosures to performance reviews
The best-performing companies don’t treat disclosure as an optional extra.
They bake it into their R&D culture, link it to team goals, and reinforce it through structured recognition.
Pro tip: If you are into the heavy R&D domain, tie invention disclosure activity to existing incentive programs or OKRs, make it part of how performance is measured and rewarded.
Related Read: Why Most Patents Get Rejected & How to Avoid It (Without Losing Your Mind!)
Legal fears are real
Here are surprisingly common reasons people shared that make them hold back from sharing disclosures:
“Am I signing away my rights?”
“What if this ties me up in something legal I don’t understand?”
Especially in startups, research-heavy teams, or academic environments, this fear runs deep.
These individuals are often used to complex IP clauses, NDAs, and grant-related strings, so they approach internal invention disclosure processes with caution.
And let’s be honest, if the process feels murky, people won’t engage.
To build trust, you need to make your IP process feel safe, transparent, and collaborative.
What helps:
- Clarify early on: Submitting a disclosure doesn’t mean signing away your rights. It’s the first step in protecting your idea, not giving it up.
- Host regular “Ask Me Anything” sessions with your legal/IP team. Keep it open, non-intimidating, and judgment-free.
- Create plain-English explainers for your IP workflow, with no legal jargon. Just clear, simple steps.
- Provide real examples of what happened after disclosure: who benefited, what decisions were made, and how credit was shared. In fact, offer a downloadable, visual timeline titled “What Happens After You Disclose?”
- Offer a downloadable, visual timeline titled “What Happens After You Disclose?”
Managers don’t talk about it, so no one else does
Culture is set at the team level. If managers aren’t actively encouraging disclosure, it gets buried under project deadlines, meetings, and quarterly targets.
And innovation culture isn’t something that happens by accident.
If you want your team to actively think about invention disclosures, you’ve got to bake it into your daily rhythm instead of treating it as a once-a-year “innovation event” or something to mention in passing during an all-hands.
Here’s how you make that happen:
- Include innovation KPIs in team OKRs (Objectives and Key Results). Make it part of their measurable goals, not a side project.
- Start every meeting with a 2-minute idea share round. Encourage everyone to bring something to the table, big or small.
- Highlight recent disclosures in Slack or during standups. Make it a regular conversation point, and celebrate the wins, even the small ones.
- Offer a dedicated platform for brainstorming. Provide a safe but modern space where ideas can flow freely without the pressure of deadlines.
Innovation challenges actually work
If you want a proven way to increase invention disclosures, try running focused innovation challenges.
Take the example of a global manufacturing company that ran a 30-day “Heating Solutions” challenge, calling for ideas to improve heating solutions’ efficiency for its users.
The result was 153 disclosures in just one month, almost 5 times their usual submissions, with 2x collaboration, and more.
Do you know why innovation challenges work so well?
- They drive urgency: A defined timeline creates a sense of urgency, motivating employees to submit ideas before the challenge ends.
- They clarify focus areas: Challenges help narrow the scope, making it easier for people to understand what kind of ideas are valuable and worth submitting.
- They build team engagement: Challenges create excitement, foster collaboration, and allow employees to feel like they’re part of something bigger.
Want to make it even more effective?
- Use tools like the AI-driven Inventor Assistant to help employees brainstorm and quickly refine patent-worthy ideas, and submit invention disclosures.
- Set clear milestones and weekly check-ins to keep the momentum going.
- Offer meaningful rewards or recognition to keep engagement high (like a prize for the top idea or public recognition during company-wide meetings).
Overall, focused challenges are not just fun. They’re a strategic way to tap into your employees’ creativity and bring fresh ideas into the innovation pipeline.
Too many systems, not enough support
Last but not the least, there’s one more problem that is shared often. Employees don’t know where or how to disclose or submit invention disclosures. Is it the IP portal? The ticketing tool? The Google Form from last year? A Google Sheet?
The lack of a system creates friction, and friction kills momentum. That’s why a centralized, intuitive invention management software becomes mandatory
Even better, you need an invention harvesting software that can be directly embedded into the tools employees already use every day. The good news is that’s where the right tool can change the game.
Related Read: Do You Need Both Invention Disclosure and IDS Software?
What Changes When the Tool Is Built for Inventors?
Every reason on this list eventually leads to the same problem: the idea existed, but the process made it too difficult to capture, develop, or submit a disclosure.
That is where InspireIP comes in.
InspireIP is built to make invention capture easier for inventors while giving IP teams the structure they need to review and manage incoming ideas. Instead of asking employees to adapt to a complex IP management system, it creates a simpler layer between the inventor and your existing IP workflow.
With InspireIP, you can:
- Capture ideas through guided questions: Inventor Assist helps employees describe what they have built without requiring them to understand patent terminology or complete a complicated disclosure form.
- Turn rough ideas into structured disclosures: Notes and early-stage thinking can be developed into clearer invention records that are easier for IP counsel to review.
- Check potential novelty earlier: Optional prior art searching powered by PQAI gives inventors an early view of related patents and technical literature before submission.
- Keep inventors informed: Status tracking and reviewer feedback make it easier for employees to understand what happened to their disclosure instead of submitting it into a black box.
- Capture ideas where employees already work: InspireIP connects with tools including Microsoft Teams, Slack, Jira, Trello, and Asana.
- Fits into your existing IP stack: Approved disclosures can move into systems such as Anaqua, IPfolio, Equinox, and Symphony without forcing you to replace the tools your IP team already uses.
The result is a more connected path from an employee having an idea to your IP team having something they can evaluate.
If increasing invention disclosures is a priority for your organization this year, book a demo of InspireIP today.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do you increase invention disclosure rates?
You can start by finding out where people are dropping off, because the answer is almost never that your team stopped having ideas. Shorten the form, tell inventors what happened to their submission, and attach some form of recognition to the act of disclosing. Then remove the last excuse by giving people a tool built for this specific job rather than a repurposed portal. Our guide to invention disclosure software features walks through what to look for when you’re evaluating options.
What is the difference between an idea and an invention disclosure?
An idea is a starting point, often a rough observation or a workaround someone found while solving something else. An invention disclosure is that same thinking written down with enough technical detail for an IP team to evaluate it. Companies lose value at exactly this handoff, because people assume their idea is not “finished” enough to be worth documenting. Capturing early ideas separately, then developing the promising ones into full disclosures, keeps that thinking from disappearing into notebooks.
What happens after an employee submits an invention disclosure?
The disclosure ideally goes to a reviewer or an IP committee that assesses novelty and commercial value against your filing criteria. From there it either moves toward a patent application, gets held for later, or gets closed with an explanation. The part companies skip is the last one. Telling someone why their disclosure did not advance costs very little and directly affects whether they submit again.
How many invention disclosures should a company expect in a year?
There is no universal benchmark, since it depends heavily on your headcount, your industry, and how much of your work is genuinely technical. A more useful measure is your own trend line. You can track disclosures per hundred technical employees, watch whether that number moves after you change something, and pay attention to how many inventors are repeat submitters.
Want help getting started? Grab our free eBooks and guide:
