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There are advantages and disadvantages to provisional patent application.The advantages of a provisional patent application (over a regular/non provisional application) are:
It facilitates instantaneous marketable backing of the invention with greater protection against having the invention stolen. A provisional can be very precious when you are still engaged in R&D and your technology is still developing. The paper work involved in filing a provisional application is less than for a regular patent application resulting in simplicity of preparation. The official filing fees are lower and hence it is comparatively economical to file. It provides easy filing with a lesser initial investment and 12 months to evaluate the invention’s commercial potential before committing to higher cost of filing and prosecuting a non-provisional application for patent. Hence several startup businesses, file provisional patent applications because they are less pricey to prepare and file. The provisional application does not need to include claims or recognize the prior art. However, it does require a full description of the invention. A provisional application can establish an early effective filing date. A provisional application can be filed up to 12 months following the date of first sale, offer for sale, public use, or publication of the invention, whichever occurs first. The filing date of an application is vital as it sets a cutoff date after which any public disclosures will not form prior art (but the priority date must also be considered- The priority date, also called the “effective filing date“, is the date used to establish the novelty and/or obviousness of a particular invention relative to other art). In most fields, the right to a patent for an invention lies with the first person to file an application for protection of that invention. It is therefore generally beneficial to file an application as soon as feasible. Note that a filing date will be settled for a provisional application only when it includes: If either of these items is absent or partial, no filing date will be settled for the provisional application. Since you have secured a filing date for your provisional filing, you may also then be able to begin promoting your invention (assuming it is fully described in your provisional filing) with reduced threat of anyone stealing your idea. Also, if you are looking for financing or investment for your technology, prospective investors will generally be keen to see that you are pursuing patent protection; and often a provisional filing will be sufficient to satisfy them that you have taken adequate preliminary steps to protect your technology. A “provisional” is automatically abandoned (expires) one year after it is filed. The 12-month pendency period cannot be extended. Independent inventors should appreciate that a provisional application will not mature into a granted /issued patent without further submissions by the inventor. Therefore, an applicant who files a provisional application must file a corresponding non-provisional application during the 12-month pendency period of the provisional application so as to profit from the earlier filing of the provisional application. The provisional filing date is not counted as part of the 20-year life of any patent that may issue with a claim to the provisional filing date. The ultimately filed non-provisional (regular) application will then have an existence which might be as long as 21 years from the filing date of the provisional application. Thus the period of a patent issuing from a non-provisional application and resulting from the conversion of a provisional application will be calculated from the original filing date of the provisional application. The corresponding non-provisional application must contain or be modified to contain a precise reference to the provisional application. Note that: |