Provisional patent application: a novelty to be handled with care

Economic operators who have filed a patent know that obtaining a patent requires time (about 2 years), many 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 postponing the formalities and the payment of numerous costs.

Thus, during his request, the applicant may limit himself 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);
• payment of the filing fee, i.e. 36 euros (payment of the fee relating to the search report (520 euros) also being deferred).

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

However, care should be taken in implementing this procedure. In particular, by wishing to proceed (too) quickly, the description of the invention could turn out to be incomplete, not delimit it precisely and thus hinder its protection when bringing the patent application into conformity (a modification of the description not being in principle possible during compliance).

Therefore, it is always recommended to use a specialist in order to be accompanied during your patent application, whether it is "provisional" or "normal".

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