Get a Provisional Utility Patent for $65

[Vigilante]

When @Likwid24 was on the Mind Your Business podcast on Saturday, something he said triggered a realization on my part.

Did you know you can get a provisional patent for $65?

1. Sal talked about using RocketLawyer.com to do-it-yourself the provisional patent. Well, you can get a free 7-day trial from RocketLawyer. So, you can get the provisional patent paperwork done for FREE during the free trial by using their provisional patent wizard.

2. Then, you file the paperwork yourself with the USPTO. For a micro entity (which is you, as an individual or sole proprietor) the new filing fee for provisional patents for micro entities is $65

So there you go. You can get your idea protected for up to one year by a provisional patent, giving you patent pending title, for $65.

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/qs/ope/fee010114.htm

I would highly recommend reading a great self help book on patents and trademarks before you do the patent wizard, and note that provisional patents are only available for utility patents and not design patents.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

http://www.legalzoom.com/design-patents-faq/design-versus-utility-patent.html

 

[Bigguns50]

https://www.youtube.com/user/USPTOvideo/videos
I also found some of these helpful.

 

[Likwid24]

Stephen Keys book is pretty good to help you with Provisional Patents

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Vigilante]

Coincidentally, he (Stephen Key) will be on Mind Your Business a week from Saturday!

 

[Bigguns50]

Stephen Keys book is pretty good to help you with Provisional Patents

^^YES.

 

[Vigilante]

In advance of the Stephen Key "One Simple Idea" interview this weekend on Mind Your Business, we:

1. Created a RocketLawyer.com account with a free 7 day trial
2. Created a FREE provisional patent filing at RocketLawyer using their patent wizard and
3. now we will file it with the USPTO using a Micro Entity entitlement (I will explain this on the show Saturday.)

My net cost to get a new provisional patent together for our company to protect our invention? $65. All in. $65. One year provisional patent, and we can now bring the product to market without worrying about someone stealing the idea.

We have completely demystified the provisional patent process, and I will talk more about this on the MYB show on Saturday with Stephen Key.

However, I just wanted to practice what I preached. Rather than just talking about it, I did it. Took about a half hour. RocketLawyer's wizard takes you step by step through the process, using specific examples.

The only thing I am waiting on now is I just put the word out to my Facebook friends to find someone that can look at a photo and from it create two hand drawn, 2-dimensional line drawn images I can submit along with the provisional patent application.

That's it. You don't even need a CAD drawing. Hand drawn drawing is fine.

Protect your idea. Provisional patent as simple as $65 and a half hour of your time.

Note that the one year clock starts the day you file the provisional patent with the USPTO. At that time, you can then use the term PATENT PENDING. So, in our case, we will wait until we absolutely MUST expose the item publicly. We will sit on the completed application and file it only when it becomes necessary to file it, extending the 365 day provisional patent protection as long as possible.

What we will most likely do is file it the first time we either :

1. present it to a company to license it or
2. launch a product under the patent pending at retail or online

So... even though we have everything ready to go, and the document drafted for free from RocketLawyer, there is no immediate rush to file it. Nobody knows about it yet, other than our manufacturer.

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Hong King Kong]

I went through this process the past 2 days,

It gets a little confusing when I went to the submission part, since you can only upload one document at a time for each part that they need (Specifications, Drawings, SB16 form, and SB15a form) and Rocketlawyer's provisional patent wizard gives you one PDF file of everything.

I found a video that explained how to create each file individually that helped alot. He also has a dropbox folder with all the files, its located here : (

). I followed the instructions and it solved everything. Hope this helps whoever is submitting a provisional patent!

 

[Ben Taylor]

Thanks for this! This is something that I'll be pursuing once I finish finals this semester because it's simply not worth putting off any longer.

 

[ThirtyOne]

Stephen Keys book is pretty good to help you with Provisional Patents

Which book of his?

 

Dislike ads? Remove them and support the forum: Subscribe to Fastlane Insiders.

[Koen_88]

Which book of his?

I believe this book is referenced: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1522690379/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

 

[ThirtyOne]

I believe this book is referenced: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1522690379/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

I believe this book is referenced: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1522690379/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

Thanks for the tip. I know he has other books, and that one is his most popular.