Provisional application

Under United States patent law, a provisional application is a legal document filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), that establishes an early filing date, but does not mature into an issued patent unless the applicant files a regular non-provisional patent application within one year. There is no such thing as a "provisional patent".

A provisional application includes a specification, i.e. a description, and drawing(s) of an invention (drawings are required where necessary for the understanding of the subject matter sought to be patented), but does not require formal patent claims, inventors' oaths or declarations, or any information disclosure statement (IDS). Furthermore, because no examination of the patentability of the application in view of the prior art is performed, the USPTO fee for filing a provisional patent application is significantly lower ($65 - $260 as of March 1, 2017) than the fee required to file a standard non-provisional patent application. A provisional application can establish an early effective filing date in one or more continuing patent applications later claiming the priority date of an invention disclosed in earlier provisional applications by one or more of the same inventors.

The same term is used in past and current patent laws of other countries with different meanings.

The provisional application was introduced to U.S. patent law with a 1994 amendment of the Patent Act of 1952. A 12-month benefit of priority to foreign-filed applications had been a part of U.S. patent law since the 1901 U.S. ratification of the Brussels revision of the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. The 1994 introduction of the provisional application thus provided a domestic filing equivalent matching the 12-month priority benefit that had been afforded to foreign applications for the better part of the 20th century.

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