Provisionals – A Gift For the Innovators

I think the government's rationale for Provisionals was to make the patent process easier for us. Maybe the patent process is not easy for them anymore and they realized it must be ridiculous for us. Maybe it was part of job preservation. However, if one million Provisionals are filed each year, it would take about 4,000 boxes to store them away somewhere in one of many warehouses in and around the Capitol. 

Obviously, things don’t get simpler for them adding anything to the process. I doubt they will get stored away and I’m almost positive 99% of them will never have to be reviewed. I suspect the content of each envelope containing the documents gets scanned and then shredded. If a real patent doesn’t follow within twelve months, the provisional becomes obsolete which is a good reason for shredding.

Provisionals are only reviewed if two patents of similar content are filed on the same day. What are the odds of that? That depends on how hot someone else thought your idea was and decided to file something with few changes, if any at all. 

Corporations, big and small, file Provisionals, as well as innovators like us. Ninety nine percent of the content is of idea description. Sketches and words must describe the idea to the extent they could be handed off to a skilled modelmaker who could generate a working model with no questions asked. I can’t reference that description condition anywhere on the application, but I’m almost positive it’s fact.

I’ve only followed one provisional with another one time when design changes became significant. I don’t know if I have to. I just felt I should. I’m quite sure the starting date of the first was replaced with the later date the second PPS brought to the picture. We must weigh what is more important, the earlier date or the new content.

My primary intent of this subject inserted into this website  is to convey what I feel is most important about Provisionals. They must convey accurately and fully what the invention is and how it works. They must be effective as intended if they are ever reviewed. I am conveying to the best of my ability, as a layman, information as I understand it as well as how I still personally use it.

My main source of information is: United States Patent and Trademark Office – Inventor and Entrepreneur Services – Provisional Patent Application – Nonprovisional (Utility) Patent Application Filing Guide.

Briefly, a Provisional Application for Patent is a legal document filed with the United States Patent and Trademark Office that establishes an early filing date but does not mature into an issued patent unless the applicant files a regular non-provisional patent application within one year.

From patent law: The written description of the invention and of the manner and process of making and using the same invention must be in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which the invention pertains to make and use the invention.

The content of the last paragraph was mentioned three times in this 550-word page. However fast you do it or how fast you don’t, It must be obvious, if ever reviewed, that your idea works and will therefore protect your filing date.

When things get confusing, find a lawyer you will eventually use for your utility patent and obtain his input. Most of them want to establish new customers for the real patent.