What is a provisional patent application and should I file one?
A provisional application is a patent application that is filed to obtain a filing date that can be used to establish priority for a subsequent U.S. or foreign application that is filed within one year of the provisional application filing date. The provisional application is checked at the Patent and Trademark Office for completeness and not looked at further. The provisional application will never issue as a patent. The filing fee for a provisional application is significantly less than the filing fee for a “regular” utility application. However, most of the cost of an application is for attorney fees, and not the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office filing fee, and the percentage of the savings is small.
