What is a Provisional Patent Application?

Definition:

As the name suggests, a Provisional Patent Application is a temporary Patent Application filed in the Patent Office. The Provisional Patent Applications are advised to be filed to secure an early filing/priority date. The logic behind this is that the Patent Law gives the right to the person who files first and not to who invents first. Therefore, the Provisional Patent Applications help in acquiring the crucial patent filing date without much hassle.

What are the advantages of a Provisional Patent Application?

No need for details of Invention: A Provisional Patent Application need not describe the invention in as much detail as is required in the Complete Application. Certain data may be left out at this stage. Later, a Complete Specification needs to be filed within a year of filing the Provisional Application. This gives the inventor enough time to collect the necessary data and compile it as is required.

Secure early Priority date: The date on which the Provisional Patent Application has been filed, one will secure the early priority date. This means that if any Patent Application or literature or document published after the said priority date is considered as having been published after it. Therefore, who has first secured the priority date, will get the monopoly over the idea/invention/innovation.

Cost-effective for secure early Priority: The overall cost involved in the filing of Provisional Patent Application is less as compared to Complete Patent Application.

Protection without Hassle: If someone has to present or publish his/her idea in public domain and wants to protect it, in that case, Provisional Patent Filing plays key role for the protection in an efficient and effective manner as it takes less documentation, effort, and cost.

When should you file a Provisional Application?

Provision Application should be filed, if the Invention is in the Ideation stage and not in the complete stage and inventor(s) are still working on that invention. In order to secure the early priority date, a Provisional Application should be filed so that others cannot Patent the same idea and take a monopoly over it.

Therefore, in order to provide a shield to the idea at the very early stage, it is important to file a Provisional Patent Application in the Patent Office for securing of early priority date.