Originally published on September 13, 2002
By Henry N. Wixon and Janice M. Klunder, Ph.D
In 1995, the Patent Statute was amended to allow an applicant to file a provisional patent application on an invention. Patent applicants take advantage of this opportunity for different reasons, such as to obtain an extra year of patent coverage after the initial filing, or to get a disclosure on file quickly and inexpensively for business or patent law reasons. A recently decided case illustrates that the use of provisional applications can contain traps and can lead to a false sense of security.
Requirements and Benefits of Provisional Applications
A provisional application is not examined, does not have required sections, requires no claims (although claims may be filed), and has a filing fee that is less than 25% of the fee for a regular utility application. Applicants at times have used internal documentation and draft or published articles as the body of the application. Because
