What is a provisional patent?
A provisional patent is the ticket into the patent game. An inventor needs to know that you’re in a race. The first to file a patent application on a certain new idea wins as between two people. But non provisional utility patents are expensive on the scheme of things as compared to a provisional patent application. So the provisional patent application, what it is, is a ticket. It gives you a one year time to decide whether or not to file your non provisional patent. And if you file you provisional today, somebody files their non provisional tomorrow for the same thing, and then later within that year you file your non provisional, yours jump back in time via that provisional patent application ticket. You’re a day ahead. They’re a day late. You win and they lose.
