A provisional application for patent provides a priority
filing date for a patent application and permits the use of the
“Patent Pending” designation in connection with the
invention for a period of one year. A provisional patent application
can serve as a low cost first patent filing to inventors and confers
the benefit of parity with foreign applicants due to the one year
novelty rule. Applicants must claim the benefit of a provisional
application in a corresponding utility patent no later than 12 months
after the provisional filing date.
Note: A provisional application alone will not result in an
issued patent and will automatically go abandoned 12 months
from its filing date. In order to preserve your rights, a
utility patent application referencing the provisional application
must be filed during its pendency to claim the priority date
of the provisional application.
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