I prefer to not spend a lot of money before I see if it has any value so I would like to file a provisional patent on my own.
The basic invention takes some data from inputs encodes it in a certain way and then sends the data out. It sounds like a server and it pretty much in its functionality, but what I would like to patent is how it takes the data and encodes it. So would I have to describe all the types of input and all the types of outputs or can I talk in general terms and when if I file the patent describe all the specific inputs and outputs?