How Do Inventors Go To Market? Part 2: The Provisional Patent Application

4) The PPA is a relatively simple form of filing, meaning it is written in “pedestrian” English, as opposed to patent jargon. You do not have to file claims or provide prior art or formal (engineering) drawings, as you do in an NPPA.

5) It is relatively inexpensive to file a PPA. At this writing, the filing fee is $100 for an individual applicant or a small business with an application under 100 pages. You can look up current fees on the USPTO Schedule of Filing Fees.

For most inventors the PPA works out beautifully. It gives them the option of pursuing a patent within a year of the provisional patent or to bypass the full patent and take the invention to market. Warning: If you do not file an NPPA within a year of your PPA, your PPA will go up in a puff of smoke as the Patent Office’s paper-burning dragon digests its yummy pages!

Now… don’t sneak off just yet. I am very positive about the PPA, but frankly… and many of you will not like this... in all but the simplest of inventions, unless you are sure you will not be seeking a patent, I recommend that you use the services of a qualified patent attorney to help you prepare your PPA. This is because of a big “CATCH” in the patent law.

Let me explain: When you file a PPA, you do not have to submit prior art, claims, or formal drawings, but you have to describe and draw your invention so that your later claims are implied by your description and your drawings. Everything that you eventually claim as “novel” about your invention in the NPPA, must have been covered by your narrative and drawings in your PPA. Therefore: 1) you cannot make substantial changes to your invention between the PPA and the NPPA; and 2) you had better be sure that your PPA is prepared very carefully so as not to mess up your chances of eventually getting a patent.

Let’s just say that you prepare your own PPA and, six months later, you decide you’d like to file an NPPA through an attorney. After examining your invention, the prior art, and the PPA documents you filed, the attorney tells you that, in his opinion, your PPA does not adequately describe your invention to cover the claims…

If the USPTO agrees with your attorney, you will not be able to take advantage of your early filing date. Also, in the meantime, if someone else has made an application including the claims of your invention, you may not be able to receive a patent at all.

If you do not use a qualified patent attorney to at least review your PPA before submission, my option 2 would be to use a good downloadable tool like Patent Ease Provisional or Patent Wizard . Disclosure: I have not used these tools for actual PPA submissions, but I have reviewed their demonstrations and my impressions were positive.

You have more to consider, don't you? And you're going to list those considerations in your pros and cons columns to help you make a decision. You should be thinking about short and long term costs, about how much time you have to do a bang-up job on your PPA, and even about what your ultimate goals are.

Next time, I'm going to break from this series with an article about how to find a qualified patent attorney; the timing is good for that information right about now...

PSST! Inventors! Have you ever filed a PPA? Have you used PPA software to prepare your application? Other inventors would love to know about individual experiences with the PPA... Please share yours in the Comments section!

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To Market To Market: How Do Inventors Go? (Part 1)