Additional Guidance to Increase the Probability of Successful Patent Application

The provisional patent application serves as a placeholder, establishing an early filing date for your invention. The more information you provide at this stage, the better your invention will be protected, and the greater likelihood that your patent application will be successful. Including the information below with your Invention Disclosure will strengthen the probability of a successful patent application, and help you frame work to be completed within the 12 months between provisional and non-provisional filings.

  • Problem Statement: What problem will the invention address? Explain the limitations of existing solutions to this problem, and how your invention addresses them.
  • Solution Benefit Summary: Provide a brief overview of your invention's key features and advantages.
  • Results from a Preliminary Patent Search: This section should detail similar inventions in current use, or old manner of performing the function of the invention. Perform a comprehensive search to determine how your invention is novel and non-obvious. Identify and list prior art from existing patents. A suggested template to convey the extent of the preliminary patent search is as follows: Patent number; title; web link. Include in your table:
    • 1-2 sentences describing scope and novelty of the invention
    • Table noting performance of prior art versus benchmarks
  • Claims: Articulate the novel and non-obvious aspects of the invention and its distinctive features. N.B. While claims are not mandatory for a provisional patent application, including some broad and specific claims can help establish the scope of your invention and increase the protection of the provisional filing. When/if the invention moves forward for a non-provisional filing, claims will be iterated with the approved patent attorney to increase likelihood of success.
  • Potential Licensees: As available, list any external sponsors that have expressed interest in licensing the invention. Augment the list with other companies that may have interest in licensing the invention, including companies that are likely or potential competitors.
  • Plans for Further Research: After filing of a provisional patent, the invention has 12 months to file a non-provisional patent. As available, list any pending plans for research that will move the invention towards commercial viability within an approximate 12-month time window.