Prior personal possession
Protect your know-how
In highly competitive industrial sectors, companies are frequently exposed to challenges concerning prior personal possession of their discoveries, innovations or, more broadly, their intellectual and industrial property assets.
Prior personal possession refers to the ability of a company or an individual to demonstrate that they held specific know-how, an invention or strategic information at a given point in time. It therefore constitutes a decisive form of evidence for preserving rights, defending against challenges or preventing the unjustified appropriation of work by a competitor.
Proving the existence and prior date of one’s know-how, whether in the form of know-how, industrial secrets or any strategic information developed before a filing or a patent application, thus becomes a major issue.
Evidentiary tools
to protect your know-how
Qualified Timestamping
Enables organisations to certify all files and logs constituting their know-how, in an automated manner, fully integrated within their information systems.
Electronic Seal
Provides a high probative value to know-how or industrial secret files, making them immediately usable in the event of a challenge or a dispute.
Preserving the prior date of know-how:
a major strategic issue
The primary challenge lies in managing and preserving a particularly vast collection of evidence: technical documents, design files, version histories, activity logs and operational data, often generated in their millions each year.
This set of elements forms the basis for demonstrating the prior date of know-how, the effective control of an innovation before any filing or registration process, and the legitimacy of its origin. In this context, ensuring the integrity, traceability and evidential value of these elements is indispensable in order to protect the organisation against any challenge or allegation of misappropriation of intellectual or industrial property.
Build
a solid evidence file
To build a solid and legally reliable file, it is essential to identify and secure all elements that demonstrate the development and effective control of the organisation’s know-how or innovations.
R&D laboratory notebooks
Drawings
Internal presentations
Internal notes
Meeting minutes
Logs from software used for creation and development…
How does it work?
Step 1
Identification of strategic documents to be time-stamped and/or electronically sealed
Step 2
Client connection to the Evidency API
Step 3
Transmission by the client of the items to be time-stamped and electronically sealed at a pre-defined frequency
Step 4
Receipt of documents in digital format, encryption, timestamping, and return of the timestamp token to the client and/or insertion of the electronic seal into the document
Contact us for further information on our Qualified Timestamping and Electronic Sealing solutions
FAQ
Prior personal possession
What is the difference between prior personal possession and a patent?
Prior personal possession establishes that you held a creation or piece of information at a specific date. It therefore serves as proof of prior existence. A patent, by contrast, is an industrial property right granted by a competent authority, conferring an exclusive right to exploit an invention. Evidence of prior existence may strengthen a legal position in the event of a dispute, but it does not replace a formal intellectual property right such as a patent, which provides enforceable exclusive rights. Prior possession primarily demonstrates that a creation or development existed before a given date, whereas a patent grants the recognised right to protect, exploit or prevent third parties from exploiting the invention.
Why is it important to prove prior existence?
Proving prior existence helps secure the legal position of your creations, designs or research before they are disclosed or publicly exploited. In the event of a dispute or an intellectual property claim, evidence of prior existence may strengthen your position by demonstrating that you possessed the work or information before a competing claim or event occurred. Such evidence helps protect the value of intangible assets and reduces the risk of litigation.
Does prior personal possession automatically protect a creation?
No. Evidence of prior existence does not confer an exclusive right comparable to a patent or formally recognised copyright protection. Its purpose is to demonstrate that a creation existed at a given date and has remained unchanged since that moment, which may be decisive in the context of a dispute. To obtain independent legal protection (for example an exclusive right of exploitation), it is often necessary to register an intellectual property title with the relevant authorities.
What legal value does proof of prior existence have?
Well-structured evidence of prior existence relies on certified mechanisms such as a qualified timestamp associated with a digital fingerprint (hash). These mechanisms demonstrate that a document existed at a specific point in time. This type of evidence may be produced before a court or arbitral authority in the event of a dispute. Its evidential weight depends on the rigour of the proof mechanism used and on the ability to demonstrate the integrity of the content from the moment the evidence was created.
How can proof of prior existence be secured effectively?
The most reliable approach is to associate a cryptographic fingerprint of the document or creation with a certified timestamp issued by a trusted third party. This creates an immutable link between the content and the moment at which it existed. It is also advisable to preserve such evidence within a secure and traceable system, together with metadata that allows the creation and evidence chain to be reconstructed.
In which situations is prior personal possession particularly relevant?
Evidence of prior existence is particularly relevant for creators, software developers, researchers, inventors and organisations holding strategic intangible information. It is useful whenever the date on which an idea, concept or document emerged may become a decisive factor in a negotiation, filing, publication or potential dispute. It therefore provides an additional layer of legal certainty prior to undertaking formal intellectual property protection procedures.