A public disclosure is any publication that is 1) enabling to a person of ordinary skill in the art, 2) sufficiently accessible, and 3) disclosed under non-confidential (implied or explicit) circumstances. (Includes journal articles (including online publications prior to the journal’s hardcopy release), posters, slide shows, thesis publications, websites, e-mails, verbal presentations, and even funded grant applications (eg the NIH posts the title and abstract online and makes the application available in response to a Freedom of Information request).
In most foreign countries, such a disclosure prior to filing a patent application will forfeit the ability of the University to obtain patent rights and, therefore, foreign patent applications will not be filed.