If, after a year, your provisional Patent application has expired and you have not yet submitted a complete non-provisional patent, you might be eligible to do so late or offer a new provisional patent.

1) File the non-provisional patent application late

You might be able to ask the US Patent Office to let you file a non-provisional patent after the deadline and yet keep the date saved by your provisional patent if it hasn’t been more than two months since your provisional patent application’s expiration date. If, for instance, you submitted a provisional patent on October 4, 2017, and that application expired on October 4, 2018. Still, if you failed to submit a non-Provisional Patent Application by the deadline, your patent would have passed on October 4, 2018. You could still request permission from the Patent Office to continue using October 4, 2017, the date saved by your provisional patent, by filing a non-provisional patent by December 4, 2018, two months later.

The Patent Office should permit you to continue using the date of the provisional patent application as long as you accidentally missed the deadline. However, act quickly because there is a 2-month late charge. Additionally, the Patent Office must receive a particular request from you. Immediately trust this vital topic to a patent attorney or representative.

2) File a new provisional patent application

The previous provisional patent application is no longer valid and has been lost. However, you can submit a new provisional patent and request a new deadline. However, there are obvious risks. You are currently in a long line at the patent office. Let’s imagine, for instance, that you had a provisional patent application date of October 4, 2017. You failed to submit a non-provisional patent before it expired on October 4, 2088. Your current date is October 5, 2018, depending on when you submit a new provisional patent. Your prior 2017 date is still missing. Despite that, you submitted a new provisional patent; your earlier one is still valid.

Since you lost your 2017 date and received a new 2018 date, someone who previously had a patent application date after yours may now be ahead of you. This is the danger involved with waiting too long to submit a complete non-provisional patent after your provisional patent has expired. Understanding Provisional Patent contains a more thorough explanation of this with story descriptions.

Remember that submitting a new provisional patent may be useless if it has been more than a year since you first made your innovation available to the public. According to the rules of patent law, the date of your patent application must be no more than a year after the public display of your invention. As a result, if you posted your idea on YouTube more than a year ago, submitting a new provisional patent would be useless because you are no longer qualified to receive a patent. If you’re in a situation like that, talk to us about it.