What is provisional application?
- a preliminary step,
- provides you priority date and application number
- describes the nature of invention
- can be filed without any formal patent claims
- a temporary application
Benefits
- provide 12 months to fully develop the invention and determine commercial viability without losing priority
- helps in securing innovation in case of unintentional public disclosure
- handy tool to secure innovation before urgent (un-avoidable) public disclosure
- empowers the applicant to use the term “patent pending” on their product
- less expensive to prepare and file the application
- empowers the applicant to file International application and claim priority within 12 months.
Things to remember
- provisional application does not secure the innovation it only facilitates getting priority date
- complete specification and PCT application and/or convention application is required to be filed within 12 months from the date of filing provisional specification
- provides you priority date and application number
- provisional application should be sufficiently detailed and should be drafted precisely to ensure that the priority rights are secured for your invention
- no drawbacks of filing a provisional application
