Provisional Patent Applications are one of the most powerful tools for small and medium sized enterprises to protect their intellectual property. Some of the benefits of the Provisional Patent Application include:
* Provides you with an international filing date
* Quick and easy to get on file
* Doesn’t have all of the formal legal requirements that Non Provisional Patent Applications have
* Allows you to mark your invention as Patent Pending
* Can be sold or licensed
* May get you an extra year of patent protection
A major downside to the Provisional Patent Application is that it is never examined at the USPTO and it will never issue as a patent. It is largely just a placeholder. Once you have your invention in mind, you can file the Provisional Patent Application. You can always see whether your invention works before filing a Provisional Patent Application, but getting some protection on your invention before getting too far into the process has benefits. For example, if someone creates the same thing as you, it is nice to have your application on file beforehand. So I typically recommend getting a Provisional Patent Application on file as soon as possible. It can also be helpful if you are going to show your invention at a trade show or otherwise disclose it.
Filing the Provisional Patent Application is possibly the easiest step, so once you have filed, what do you do next?
* create a prototype and see whether the invention works as you expected it
* make some modifications to the invention to improve it before filing a Non Provisional Patent Application
* test the market to see if there is interest in the invention
* look for investors if you need working capital
*get feedback from people that have used the invention to see if anything can be changed to make it better
* file the Non Provisional Patent Application before the one year deadline
The above is a general guideline on what to do after you have filed your Provisional Patent Application. If you have any other questions about patents or any other intellectual property questions, please consider doing our Pirate Fight Club Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/piratefightclub