The provisional application is intended to afford U.S. inventors the same twelve month period in which to replace the provisional application (a placeholder) with a non-provisional patent application. Like everything else, it has its advantages and disadvantages.

The filing fee for a provisional application is $75.00 instead of $395.00 for a small entity. The provisional also secures an inventors place in line but does not start the time period running on the patent term. It does not require the submission of claims, the more technically challenging aspect of patent drafting, and so encourages self-filing. Acting as a placeholder, it gives the inventor time to further refine the invention, test the marketability of the invention, disclose the invention to third parties without fear of losing rights, and provide the time to secure proper patent counsel and provide counsel time to draft the best possible non-provisional application without fear of an earlier filing by a competitor.

Nevertheless, some of these same advantages also work to the disadvantage of the inventor. The filing date of the provisional application starts the clock ticking on the 18 month publication date. Consequently, six months after filing a non-provisional patent application, the world will have published notice of the patent application. More seriously, it starts the clock ticking on the need to file in foreign countries to protect patent rights. If, after additional consideration, the invention is not subject to protection as a utility patent, the provisional application cannot act to provide the earlier filing date for a later filed non-provisional design patent application. In this instance, the cost savings and lack of necessity to draw claims inherent in a provisional application is lost as an advantage to any design patent application. Finally, and most important, a provisional application only protects that which is disclosed. Information not disclosed, or inadequately disclosed, in the provisional application, is not subject to the earlier filing date. The marketing or sale of a product on the assumption that it is subject to protection by a provisional filing may lead to lost patent rights when the application is later determined to have not adequately disclosed the commercially valuable elements of the invention. For this single reason, the promise of an informal provisional application falls short. Any provisional should be treated with the same respect as the non-provisional application anticipated to follow it.