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Since 1995, USPTO has offered inventors two options for starting the application process. You can file a provisional application, which has been designed to provide a lower-cost first patent filing in the United States and give U.S. applicants parity with foreign applicants.

The patent office does not require claims for this provisional application and the invention wont be examined on its merits. It does afford the applicant the means to establish an early effective filing date and allows the term Patent Pending to be applied to the invention.

The filing date is the date on which the written description and any necessary drawings, with the inventors name, are received at the patent office. The applicant must include a filing fee, and then he/she has up to 12 months to file the actual, or nonprovisional application. This kind of application is not available for a design invention.

Garcia, Worldwide Safetys CEO and inventor, has filed numerous patent applications and has confidence in the process. The system works to protect the inventor, he says. When I registered my first invention years ago, I knew nothing about patents, but I think the system is very efficient. A lot of inventions really do come out of garages and its feasible to receive protection easily with a provisional application for an initial fee of only $80.

When the USPTO accepts a nonprovisional patent application for review, it assigns the patent to a specific technology center. Each center has jurisdiction over an assigned field of technology and examines each application on a first-come, first-served basis.

The average review to determine ownership of the new invention takes about 18 months from time of application. The examination consists of a study of the application for compliance with legal requirements and a search through U.S. patents, publications of prior patent applications, foreign patent documents and available literature to see if the claimed invention is new, useful and nonobvious.

Its not unusual for the examiner to reject an initial application and request additional information before the USPTO decides to issue a patent. The patent attorney or agent of record will work with the examiner on behalf of the inventor to clarify or provide additional information in response to the first office action. Typically, the process allows an inventor two rounds of tweaking the application and the second office action usually will be made final.

If that action is a rejection, the applicants agent may file a brief with the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences. (An interference is a proceeding to determine between two competing applications which one has priority.)

The USPTO receives applications at the rate of more than 300,000 per year, and more than 3,000 of its 6,000 employees are examiners and others with technical and legal training.

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