If you have great ideas for inventions but don’t yet have the money for full patent protection, filing a provisional patent will give you 12 months of patent ownership barring competitors from patenting your idea during that period. While you have provisional patent rights, you can continue the process of obtaining a patent while selling your patented product free from worries about theft or patent infringement. It is a great way to test the waters of your new idea before committing to pay for full patent rights.

In order to get a provisional patent, a provisional patent application must be filled out following a comprehensive USPTO patentability search guaranteeing your invention has not already been patented. An experienced patent attorney can assess the specifics of your invention and fill out a provisional patent application to highlight the uniqueness and patentability of your idea, while continuing to guarantee you intellectual property protection.

Filing a provisional patent takes place much as filing a non-provisional patent application would, except the claims section of the patent is not included. This makes it easier to draw up an application without honing in on the most specific details of the patent and the aspects which require patent protection, but it also leaves the patent application open to holes and gaps that can be exploited by competitors looking to sell a similar product. A provisional patent also only lasts one year.

There are no specific forms for provisional patent applications that need to be filled out – a provisional patent application, however, must follow the template of existing patent applications, with a section of specifications of the patent, diagrams and an abstract. For examples of existing patents, visit the patent examples section.