What is Provisional Patent?
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What is Provisional Patent? Video Transcript
So what is a provisional patent? In summary, it is nothing. Provisional patents do not exist in the world. There are provisional patent applications, but you can never get a provisional patent. There are only full utility patents that are issued. It should be really called a provisional utility patent application because it is a placeholder. All it is is a placeholder. Nobody looks at a provisional patent application. It just sits in the Patent Office for one year and within that one year, you have to file that full utility patent application. If you do not, you may lose the rights forever. So it is a place in line. It is a quick way to put a place in line, put a stake in the ground and say, this is the date, I invented it, I may not have the money or figured out everything else yet to file a full application, but I am buying myself a year and putting a stake in the ground. So what you need to do if you are filing a provisional application is write a complete disclosure: have at least eight to 10 figures, have 25-30 pages. Even if five pages are really relevant, 25 pages are marginally relevant, make sure you write it that way. Do not put a one paragraph provisional filing at the USPTO because it is easy to invalidate it. It is easy to later say that your utility application which might be written a year later does not have support in that provisional because the provisional was so short and only had a paragraph or two. So make it substantial. Make sure even if you take stuff from Wikipedia, put that in there, but make sure you do not use any bounded sentences. Make sure you do not say anything that is going to construe your claims narrowly. That is what you can do with the provisional patent application. That is only a place order to get a full patent. Now, you should know that there is no such thing as a provisional patent. That being said, there are only a full US Patents that are issued.