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What is a Provisional Patent Application?

Whenever one is at a stage in their research and development work where it can be published on the document but it is not an ultimate discovery, in that case, you can most certainly develop a summary of the invention as provisional spec and present to the patent office to bind the priority date of the discovery.

It provides the subsequent advantages:

  • Settles filing date
  • 12 months to file full specification
  • Less price 

Whenever you are done with the needed papers and your research work is at the level where you can have a model and test results to prove the inventive step, then you can file the complete specification.

Listing the provisional specification is an arbitrary step, if you stay at a stage where you have comprehensive information regarding your design, then you can immediately go for full specification.

A provisional specification is certainly not just a rough draft, it describes the area of invention and further outlines the scope of the invention to a certain extent. Even when you file complete specification, succeeding it does not substitute the provisional specification, it persists in the record. The patent office here accords the filing date and patent application number to the provisional specification accepted.

If the process is not done within12 months from the filing date of provisional specification, the patent application is handled as believed to have been discontinued.

How does provisional application save expenses in obtaining a patent in India?

In case we look at a typical development cycle of a patent keeper, the most favored way you get your ROI with the controls is by authorizing it with other firms. The victory in allowing your patent to other business completely rests on how you communicate with the decision-makers and propose the benefits and possible values by licensing rights for your trademarked discovery. Yet, alternatively, if you are going for a complete patent, maybe, you can prefer to go for a provisional patent application.

Be cautious when addressing a provisional application for your discovery. 

It is a scope defining document:

The application determines the field of your discovery. So each part of the invention that is outside the reach of the provisional statement and you happened to grow in the 12 months, will lose to have the more initial preference date (filing period of provisional application). 

Therefore this implies the part of the invention you acquired after filing provisional, which is now outside the scope, which is placed by the provisional application will certainly not possess the benefit of the preferred date of the provisional application.

Likewise, if you register complete specification next, it does not substitute the provisional specification, it persists in the record.

The patent office designates the filing date and patent application number to the provisional application accepted. 

The applicant who has filed a provisional patent application should essentially register for a non-provisional patent application throughout the 12-month pendency time of the provisional application to profit from the newer filing of the provisional application.

Contents of Provisional Specification 

  • Name of the discovery
  • Summary of the invention starts with a preface ‘The following Specification illustrates the invention.’
  • The report contains –
    • The area of invention and including the environment of the invention,
    • The object of the invention and declaration of the invention.

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