The Risks of an Improperly Filed Provisional Patent Application

Hi, I'm John Rizvi, the patent professor. One way to think about provisional patents is to think of them as a parachute. Imagine that you are a skydiver. You want your parachute professionally packed by an expert so that it opens when you need it. If you pack your own parachute and packet wrong, nobody's going to know until you jump out of a plane and it doesn't open. That's why skydivers hire an expert to pack their own parachute, or they become one themselves. Provisional patents are the same way. Nobody at the patent office reviews a provisional patent to see if it's done correctly. Instead, when the patent office receives a provisional patent, a clerk Simply Stamps it patent pending, and issues you a tracking number. Without having ever read the application. You can send in your three year old toddlers crayon drawing and a crook at the patent office will accept it as a provisional patent. That is because the provisional patent is nothing but a placeholder that saves your place in line at the patent office for 12 months until a regular non provisional patent can be filed. The only time a provisional patent is reviewed, is when the question comes up of who invented first, the same tough requirements are in place for a provisional patent that are in place for a regular pattern. That means if your provisional patent is found to be faulty, you lose your filing date and the patent gets awarded to someone else, even if they filed after you. In this way. A sloppily written provisional patent is like a parachute that doesn't open with the parachute, you don't know it won't open until you need it to open. The same is true with a provisional patent that's not done by a patent attorney like a parachute that won't open when you need it. A provisional patent that does not count is completely worthless. And a little money you save by hiring a low cost document preparation company to prepare the patent application or by doing it yourself is not worth losing your invention over most provisional patent scams make you sign a fine print waiver that says they are not responsible for the quality of your provisional patent because they are basing it only on what you provide it to them. Garbage in is garbage out. At my law firm I guarantee you can count on your provisional patent to protect your rights. And everything you pay for the provisional patent at my firm is credited towards the full patent. So following this route with us does not cost you anything extra I want it done right. Call me the patent Professor.