What is a provisional application?
A provisional application is a patent application, which establishes an official United States patent application filing date for the invention and permits the term "Patent Pending" to be applied in connection with the invention.
A provisional application automatically becomes abandoned when its pendency expires 12 months after the provisional application filing date by operation of law.
Applicants must file a non-provisional application claiming benefit of the earlier provisional application filing date in the Patent Office before the provisional application pendency period expires in order to preserve any benefit from the provisional-application filing.
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Some of the information provided herein was obtained from the United States Patent and Trademark website, www.uspto.gov. For further information, see the Patent Office inventor resources at http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/index.htm.
