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Provisional Patents
Once your provisional application for patent is filed, you have twelve months to apply for a full patent that can claim the earlier filing date as the date of invention. This can be done in two ways:
- Filing a full patent application that claims the provisional application’s filing date.
- Filing a petition to convert the provisional application into a full patent application.
Although both of these actions result in a full patent application, the patent term will differ. With the first option, your patent term will be measured from the filing date of your full patent. With option two, the term will be measured from the filing date of the provisional application. In short, the first option allows you to effectively add an extra year to your patent term.
For the full patent application to benefit from the provisional application’s filing date, the description of the invention in the two applications must be similar. In other words, the U.S. Patent Office must be able to confirm that the two descriptions both depict the same invention.
That’s why it is important to be thorough in disclosing your invention in the provisional application. This is also why the U.S. Patent Office recommends including professional illustrations with your provisional application.
Since provisional applications are not reviewed by the U.S. Patent Office, filing a provisional does not guarantee you will be awarded a full patent. Full patent applications are evaluated their own merit. Only if the full patent application is approved will the provisional application’s filing date be used as the patent’s priority date.
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