I’m worried about plagiarism when submitting my project details. Does USCIS protect my intellectual property?

This is a legitimate concern. To be direct: USCIS treats the information in your petition as confidential, used only to evaluate your case, but that is not the same as intellectual property protection. Administrative confidentiality and rights over an invention or work are two different things.

When you file an EB-2 NIW petition, evidence accompanies your application so that officers can assess the merit and relevance of your work. That information is not published or released as open material. Even so, the immigration process does not, by itself, create any patent, trademark, or copyright over what you submit.

If your project involves trade secrets or sensitive information, the right approach is to pursue the appropriate intellectual property protections before exposing the details:

• Evaluate patent, trademark, or copyright registration as applicable.
• Present USCIS with enough to demonstrate merit, without disclosing secrets that do not need to be revealed.
• Consider specialized legal counsel in intellectual property.

To understand what to submit and how the process handles your data, it is worth consulting USCIS official guidance and a specialist before filing.

About the author

Victoria Harper

Editor-in-Chief

Meet the author

As a journalist and lead editor at Visto n’ Visa, Victoria helps ensure that immigration topics are covered in a clear, trustworthy, and easy-to-understand way. Her focus is on delivering useful, human, and relevant content for people exploring new paths abroad.