Provisional Patent

In the United States, inventors have an alternative to filing a utility patent application.  Instead, inventors can file a Provisional Patent application.  In a provisional application, the inventor discloses his invention, but the application is not examined.

Instead, the inventor or assignee has a year to file a utility patent claiming priority to the provisional.  This means that the utility application gets the filing date for all of the material in the provisional application. During the year the inventor can mark a device as pat pending.

A provisional application gives you a fast, inexpensive way to establish the invention date for your invention.  You can file the provisional, and continue working on the invention.  The provisional is kept secret, but you must convert it to a utility patent claiming priority or it expires.