Provisional Patent Applications (PPA) - Quality Focused
About Our Provisional Patent Application
(PPA) Practice
There are some good
reasons to file a provisional application, however, it
is not
always a good idea. Please review our FAQ
on our Provisional Patent Application services and
our overview
on provisional applications before
proceeding.
One issue with Provisional Patents is that because they are informal documents, to get the cost down, attorneys will "cut a lot of corners", which is why you will see some ridiculously low provisional fees on the Internet (as low as a $100). When it comes to your preserving your future patent rights, protecting your invention from copying or theft is not the place to be "penny wise, and dollar foolish" by simply picking the lowest bidder. You almost always get what you pay for when it comes to legal work. That is, "Cutting corners" also cuts quality, and because, by law, provisionals are not allowed to be changed after filing to add new matter, any problems or weaknesses get directly inherited into the later filed regular (Utility) patent, which can handicap it (i.e., making it easy for competitors to design around) or render it invalid depending on how bad the issues are. Also, if your provisional is not of good enough quality, you can lose your patent rights if your public disclosure/sale is not covered with proper legal language in your provisional and the one year deadline is passed before filing the Utility.
Thus, it is imperative to understand that although anything can be filed as a provisional (an inventor is even allowed to file their
own provisional application -pro se), if the provisional does
not satisfy the multitude
of “best practice” and legal requirements, you can easily lose
some or all
of your patent protection rights. Understandably, many small
business and
independent inventors have an economic incentive to file a
provisional application
to attain presumed “Patent-Pending” legal protection while
determining the invention’s
market value before investing in the high cost of a
non-provisional patent application. Independent inventors, especially, should not be fooled to
believe that the legal quality of the provisional does not matter, or that anyone
but a licensed professional should help you prepare and file
your provisional application.
Again, if your provisional application is insufficient, in any substantial way, you not only
lose any patent protection
you thought you had, but even worse you will be barred from ever
patenting your
invention if it was ever publicly used or disclosed– a high risk
to take just to
avoid some small upfront expenses as detailed below.
Bay Area IP recognizes that individual and small business
inventors sometimes need
a very affordable provisional “Patent-Pending” protection
mechanism that they can
use for market testing their invention before investing in a
non-provisional patent,
and at other times need a high quality provisional
application to protect a potentially seminal invention. That is
why we offer
two categories of service- the first is our quality oriented
provisional application service, which serves clients
who wish to have a
relatively good quality follow-on
non-provisional application.
Quality Oriented Provisional Application
Service
For help on deciding the right service level for your situation, see our Provisional Patent
Application Quality Decision FAQ/Help Guide
The best way to get started is to visit our get
started page, contact us,
or directly request
a quote online. Below is a more detailed explanation of our Quality
Oriented Provisional Patent Application Services.
In this collection of quality-oriented
options, we prepare the provisional for you with a level of
completeness tailored
to your budget and needs. Once you decide to go forward with a
Provisional
Application, we will work closely with you to tailor an approach
customized to your
individual needs. Unlike most patent firms, Bay Area IP is very
flexible in
working with you to achieve your optimal balance between upfront
investment risk
verses potential future protection. Although we analyze every
client’s situation
individually, most who seek a quality follow-on
non-provisional application will fall into one of the following
general cost reduction
options:
1. Top Quality-
You provide a standard disclosure, we prepare the
provisional as
if it were a non-provisional, except for time consuming sections not required for provisionals. We implement advanced legal safeguards and seek to "bullet proof" the patent against competitor design arounds.
Result: Likely a better
quality non-provisional application, and you defer about
40% of
normal costs to the non-provisional application.
2. Good Quality-
You provide a detailed disclosure according to our instruction,
we prepare a provisional implementing best drafting practices
and implement basic
legal safeguards, nonessential sections are not included.
Result: Likely an average quality non-provisional
application, and you defer about 50% in normal costs to the
non-provisional
application.
