Filing a provisional patent application with the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) awards UBC a filing or priority date for the invention described in the application. In other words, in almost all countries, identical subject matter submitted by another inventor in a different patent application after our priority date will generally not be granted.
A provisional patent application does not grant any of the rights of an issued patent, but it does establish a priority date upon which future PCT and national applications can rely. This allows inventors to publish or otherwise publically disclose their invention without losing patent rights.
Provisional patents are generally much cheaper than full patent applications and afford greater flexibility with respect to their format. This allows:
- The Innovation UBC team to establish a priority date for a discovery that an inventor is about to publicly disclose, without committing to a costlier full patent application.
- A 12-month deferral of costs of patenting expenses (non-provisional filings can cost tens of thousands of dollars to draft and file). During this time the Innovation UBC will seek a licensee for the technology to cover patenting costs.
- The 12-month period also allows researchers to continue their research to provide further characterization of their invention for a potential conversion to a full application. The generation of compelling data during this period can also help the Innovation UBC team to decide whether to invest in patenting a technology in the absence of commercial partners.
- A provisional patent expires after 12 months, meaning that a decision must be reached before this time as to whether to convert the application into a full patent application or lose the priority date.
