What is a Provisional Application?
What do I need to include in a Provisional Application?
Is there a form for a provisional patent application?
What forms do I need to file with my Provisional Application?
For filing a paper copy to the US Patent and Trademark Office you’ll only need a Provisional Cover Sheet and a Fee Transmittal form.
For electronic filing through the US Patent and Trademark Office EFS-Web system you
will need to file an Application Data Sheet.
Although not required we usually include a Provisional Cover Sheet with the electronic filing.
How do I turn my Provisional Application into a patent?
becomes abandoned or expires at the one-year anniversary of the filing date.
However it you file a regular or non-provisional patent application within one-year of the
filing date of the provisional patent application and make a claim of priority to the
provisional patent application then your non-provisional patent application will benefit
from the filing date of the provisional patent application
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Should I file a Provisional patent Application or a non-provisional patent application?
This is question that we get asked a lot and our response is that it’s a business decision
that you’ll have to make based on your circumstances.
Reasons to file a provisional application over a regular application
Some of the benefits of Provisional Applications are that they are much cheaper than
regular applications (usually costing about 1/3 as much) and faster to prepare than regular
applications which will allow you establish your priority at the patent office faster and at
a lower cost so that you can go out and discuss, build, market, sell your invention to
others and/or determine whether it’s worth the investment to file the full utility/regular
patent application. In short, similar to the regular application you’ll enjoy the “Patent
Pending” Status & Secure your invention with the filing of the Provisional Applications.
Reasons to file a regular application over a provisional application
Some of the benefits of proceeding with a regular application over filing a provisional
application are that if you know that you’re eventually going to file for a regular
application filing for a provisional application first results in just added cost and further
delays in the examining and hopefully in the issuance of your patent.