Oz Invent offers a Provisional Patenting services for inventors wishing to begin the patenting process without committing to the full expense.

A provisional patent involves lodging a patent document and drawings with 'IP Australia'. You will receive back a patent number and priority date. It will last one year.

Lodging a provisional patent does not give you full patent protection yet (this is still probably 2 years and $10K away! ) but it does let you start developing your idea without fear of having your Intellectual Property stolen.

The 'priority date' is the most important thing you get from your Provisional Patent. This is the date that will legally be recognized as when you had the idea.

If your idea is classed as being in the 'public domain' it doesn't affect your ability to patent as long as it is after your 'priority date'. Also if you receive a full patent it will be backdated to the priority date.

"Find out more about the patent process and options from www.ipaustralia.gov.au"

A third point is that if two people are developing the same idea at the same time, only the person with the earliest priority date will be eligible to get the patent.

Getting a Provisional Patent is a fairly straight forward and inexpensive way of starting the IP protection process.

Oz Invent is very happy to draft the provisional patent, create drawings, and lodge the document for products which we have designed.