Provisional Patents
Position your invention for a formal patent
A provisional patent application is often seen as a stepping stone toward a utility patent. It establishes priority for your idea and gains patent pending status at a lower cost.
In the United States, patents are under a “first to file” system. This means that patent priority is given to the inventor with the earliest application filing date with the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
Provisional applications allow you to file with the USPTO without a formal patent claim and thereby reserve your filing date (i.e., your priority date) without having to file the more extensive nonprovisional application at that time. If you still need more time to finalize your invention, a provisional patent can help.
Some of the key benefits of a provisional patent are:
- It costs about half as much to prepare as a utility patent application
- It gives you the patent priority perk, as long as you file your full application within 12 months
- It will help you protect the essence of your idea as your continue to perfect your invention, allowing you to innovate with confidence
Learn more about provisional patents
How to Display Patent Pending on a Website
Being able to claim “patent pending status” can be an important marking for your product or technology to display your intellectual property rights. There are some specific marking rules that you will need to follow, however, to claim this patent pending verbiage for your invention. In general, you must make a good faith effort that your invention has proper markings and done in a consistent manner. How to display patent pending on a website, it is important for you to…
What Is a Provisional Patent?
A provisional patent is actually a misnomer because a “provisional patent” does not exist. Rather, you can file a provisional patent application in order to get patent priority for your product or invention.
The provisional patent application won’t be your official patent application that will be the basis to grant you patent approval. Instead, it is a stepping stone that allows you to preserve the “filing date” for your patent while giving you some more time for additional research and
What Does ‘Patent Pending’ Mean
You’ve probably noticed a lot of products out there that are marked ‘Patent Pending.’ This means that the companies that put those products on the market have decided that it’s fairly safe, after the patent application has been filed, to start producing and selling their idea.
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