What is a Claim's Priority Date?

Go Back

What is a Claim's Priority Date? Video Transcript

A claim's priority date and a patent application's priority date is the earliest disclosure of that concept ever in a printed form to the United States Patent Office or to the public. So it could be the filing date of the provisional patent application. It could be the date of the invention which was documented and maybe published in a paper. Usually, if it is within one year of that publication and the actual filing of a utility application, it is okay. Anything that was published more than a year ago in a printed publication made externally available to the world may disqualify the filing of a patent. So what is a priority date? Priority date is not the filing date of the utility application. It is the earliest disclosure of your invention to the public or to the Patent Office. It can be the provisional filing date of any public disclosure that was made previously.

PatentExpress.com is a website of Raj Abhyanker, a professional U.S. Patent Law firm, see: www.rajpatent.com for more. All non-do-it-yourself related services advertised on this site are supervised and managed by a U.S. patent attorney.

© PatentExpress.com All rights reserved. Disclaimer: The information provided in this site is not legal advice, but general information on legal issues commonly encountered. Please note that your access to and use of PatentExpress.com is subject to additional terms and conditions. 05-23-2012