Is a Provisional Patent Recognised Internationally?
Yes! Most countries recognize a Provisional application as being the legal starting point for an invention. All major countries such as the United States, Australia, Singapore, Japan, UK, China and New Zealand allow and encourage the filing of a provisional patent application to secure a “priority” filing date. Importantly, a provisional application is given a priority date and a patent pending number and is valid for one year. Please be aware though that to retain the priority, a Final or Complete Patent application, or any foreign filing must be filed before the 12-month anniversary of the date of filing the provisional patent application or the original filing date will be lost. Other features to be aware of are that a Provisional Patent is not examined and its contents remain secret to the public. This means that the inventor is very much in control of the information concerning his invention and can disclose it, or not, depending on his situation. This is extremely advantageous an
