Provisional patent application: a novelty to be handled with care

Economic operators who have filed a patent know that obtaining a patent application requires time (approximately 2 years), numerous formalities and significant costs (at least a few thousand euros).

The provisional patent application provided for in Article R612-3-1 of the Intellectual Property Code now aims to open a right of priority while deferring in time the formalities and the payment of numerous fees.

Therefore, when submitting their application, the applicant may limit themselves to:

• to a description of the invention (the provision of one or more claims and the abstract of the technical content of the invention being deferred);
• to the payment of the filing fee, i.e. 36 euros (the payment of the fee relating to the research report (520 euros) is also deferred).

Within 12 months of the provisional patent application, and if the applicant wishes it to become a "normal" patent application, they may request that it be brought into compliance (i) by providing all the missing documentation and (ii) by paying the search report fee.

However, caution is advised when implementing this procedure. In particular, by attempting to proceed (too) quickly, the description of the invention could prove incomplete, fail to precisely define its scope, and thus hinder its protection during the patent application compliance process (as a modification of the description is not, in principle, possible during compliance).

Therefore, it is always recommended to use a specialist to assist you with your patent application, whether it is "provisional" or "normal".

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