There are many benefits to filing a provisional patent application.  The information below is from the United States Patent and Trademark Office.  Read below as they explain the many advantages to this option.

Since June 8, 1995, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has offered inventors the option of filing a provisional application for patent which was designed to provide a lower-cost first patent filing in the United States.

Applicants are entitled to claim the benefit of a provisional application in a corresponding non-provisional application filed not later than 12 months after the provisional application filing date. Under the provisions of 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) , the corresponding non-provisional application would benefit in three ways:

(1) Patentability would be evaluated as though filed on the earlier provisional application filing date.

(2) The resulting publication or patent would be treated as a reference under 35 U.S.C. § 102(e) as of the earlier provisional application filing date.

(3) The twenty-year patent term would be measured from the later non-provisional application filing date. Thus, domestic applicants are placed on equal footing with foreign applicants with respect to the patent term. Inventors may file U.S. provisional applications regardless of citizenship.

The later-filed non-provisional application claiming the benefit of the provisional application must include at least one claim particularly pointing out and distinctly claiming the subject matter, which the applicant regards as the invention.

Although a claim is not required in a provisional application, the written description and any drawing(s) of the provisional application must adequately support the subject matter claimed in the later-filed non-provisional application in order for the later-filed non-provisional application to benefit from the provisional application filing date.

Therefore, care should be taken to ensure that the disclosure filed as the provisional application adequately provides a written description of the full scope of the subject matter regarded as the invention and desired to be claimed in the later filed non-provisional application.

There is no requirement that the written description and any drawings filed in a provisional application and a later-filed non-provisional application be identical, however, the later-filed non-provisional application is only entitled to the benefit of the common subject matter disclosed in the corresponding non-provisional application filed not later than 12 months after the provisional application filing date.

Additionally the specification shall disclose the manner and process of making and using the invention, in such full, clear, concise and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art to which the invention pertains to make and use the invention and set forth the best mode contemplated for carrying out the invention.

A provisional application for patent is a U. S. national application for patent filed in the USPTO under 35 U.S.C. § 111(b) . It also allows the term “Patent Pending” to be applied in connection with the description of the invention.

For a Free Invention Consultation or to get started filing your provisional patent application please visit us at New Product Consulting.

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