What is the difference between a provisional patent application and a non-provisional patent application?
A provisional patent application is, essentially, an informal patent application that does not require claims or formal drawings prepared by a draftsman. The provisional patent application can be filed at a lower cost than a non-provisional patent application and provides a means to establish an early effective filing date in a patent application. Filing a provisional patent application also permits the term Patent Pending to be applied in connection with the invention. A provisional patent application is not examined on the merits and cannot, in itself, result in a granted patent. A provisional patent application will become abandoned by operation of law 12 months from its filing date. The Applicant (Inventor) has up to 12 months from the filing date of the provisional patent application to file a corresponding non-provisional (formal) patent application in the USPTO. The claimed subject matter in the later filed non-provisional patent application is entitled to the benefit of the fil
A provisional application for patent is a shorter version of a non-provisional patent application (NPA). Both may be used to apply for a utility patent. A provisional application secures a filing date that can be referenced if an NPA for the same invention is filed. Once a provisional application is filed, an inventor has exactly one year (if the invention hasn’t yet been publicly disclosed) to file the NPA. If an inventor does not file an NPA within that timeframe, the provisional application is deemed abandoned. This means the inventor loses the right to that filing date.
Related Questions
- If a provisional application is filed and then after 12 months expires without filing a non-provisional application filed, does this prevent a patent ever to be issued?
- What is the difference between a provisional and unprovisional (non-provisional) patent application?
- Is there a difference between a provisional or non-provisional patent application?
