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Application Process for your PatentThe
3 types of patent applications
There are 3 types of patent applications:
- Provisional applications
- Complete applications
- International applications
Provisional applications
It is not essential for you to file a provisional application. However, it
can be used at an early stage to establish a priority
date for your invention, and give you up to 12 months to decide whether
to continue the patenting process.
Filing a provisional application on its own does not give you patent
protection.
If you decide to pursue patent protection for your invention then, some time
before the 12 months is up, you can file:
- a complete standard patent application or complete innovation patent application in Australia associated with the provisional application;
- an international patent application claiming priority from you provisional application; and/or;
- separate patent applications in one or more overseas countries claiming
priority from your provisional application.
The provisional specification which forms the basis of a provisional application
must be drafted very carefully to ensure that you secure effective priority
rights for your invention.
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Complete applications
A complete application is necessary to actually have a patent granted. The
complete application may or may not be preceded by an associated provisional
application.
A complete application can be for either an Australian innovation
or standard patent application and must be accompanied by a
complete specification
which contains at least one claim defining your invention.
A claim is a concisely written statement that defines the invention covered
by the patent application. What falls within that definition is protected by
the patent-anything outside is not.
Have you filed a complete application and in hindsight wish you had
filed a provisional application?
You can ask us to treat the complete application as a provisional application but this can only be done within a limited period.
For standard patent applications, this time frame is 12 months from the complete application being filed or 3 weeks before the publication of the complete (whichever is the earlier).
However, the innovation patent has a much shorter time frame. The conversion has to completed by the time the application is accepted. This is generally between 1 and 3 weeks of filing the application (unless there are formality objections) and often can be even shorter. For this reason, you need to act immediately if you wish to change from an innovation to a provisional patent.
There are also 2 special types of complete application useful only in circumstances
where you already have a patent or a patent application. They are:
 Patent
of addition - this is used to protect an improvement or modification that
you have made to the invention of your earlier patent or patent application;
and
Divisional
application - each patent must be for a single invention. If your earlier
patent application described more than one invention, you can use a divisional
application for each extra invention without losing the priority date of your
earlier application.
International applications
An international application is a useful way to apply for patents in a number
of different countries simultaneously and protect those important export markets.
These are also known as PCT (Patent Co-operation Treaty) applications. Detailed information about international patents and the PCT is available from the WIPO website.
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