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A lawyer mentioned that to me. Also he compared it to strategic provisional.

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An example of this type of filing would be on the even of a public presentation or meeting with potential investors who gave no obligation of confidentiality an inventor realizes they are about to compromise their patent rights.

They could take all the written materials they have prepared that relate to the product/invention and file it electronically with the USPTO as a provisional patent application (which requires a special cover sheet or otherwise clear, compliant, indication it is a provisional filing. Any other descriptive material can be included with no formal organization.

It might help or might be found wanting if it is later called on to support your ultimate claims. If you follow up with a non provisional within a year of the disclosure with a non provisional application you probably get the benefit of the one year grace period in the US.

Then you don’t have the problem the linked article talks about (disclosures or on sale beyond the grace period) and the benefit would be to disqualify purported prior art that has a publication date between the two applications. It could also preserve your rights to file other than in the US. The rest of the world foes not have a grace period.

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