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The provisional patent application is only pending for 12 months prior to becoming abandoned. Thus, filing a non-provisional patent application claiming the benefit of the provisional application must be done within 12 months. Otherwise, the rights to claim the benefit of provisional application are lost. [12]
In order for a US provisional application to establish a priority date for a future full (i.e. non-provisional) standard patent application, the disclosure in the provisional must be enabling. Claims are not required in a provisional application, although it is advised to have them, since claims may contribute to enabling disclosure.
Under United States patent law, the term of patent, provided that maintenance fees are paid on time, is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. or international application (that is to say, an application under the PCT system) to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications). [1] [2] [3]
In the United States, for utility patents filed on or after June 8, 1995, the term of the patent is 20 years from the earliest filing date of the application on which the patent was granted and any prior U.S. or Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications from which the patent claims priority (excluding provisional applications). For patents ...
The term arose in 1995 to distinguish what were at the time "normal" patent applications from the newly established provisional applications. A complete non-provisional application differs from a provisional in that a non-provisional must contain at least one claim and is to be examined.
The US requirement for non-obviousness corresponds to the inventive step requirement in other countries. An "invention" is obvious (and therefore ineligible for a patent) if a person of "ordinary skill" in the relevant field of technology would have thought the technology was obvious, on the filing date of the patent application.
A provisional application for patent provides more benefits and protections to inventors than a disclosure document and can be used for the same purposes as a disclosure document if necessary. ... A non-provisional application must be filed within twelve months of the filing date of a provisional patent in order for the inventor to claim the ...
an application for a patent, a utility model or a utility certificate, or his successor in title, shall enjoy, for the purpose of filing a European patent application in respect of the same invention, a right of priority during a period of twelve months from the date of filing of the first application.