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There is no law or rule requiring an inventor to determine whether their invention is patentable before filing a patent application. In fact, filing a patent application and receiving an examination from a patent examiner at the US Patent and Trademark Office is the only sure way to find out if your invention is patentable. However, there are some limited situations in which it may be advisable to perform some amount of patentability search and analysis prior to making a decision to prepare and file a patent application.The body content of your post goes here. To edit this text, click on it and delete this default text and start typing your own or paste your own from a different source.

Short Answer: It depends upon the developmental stage of the invention, your budget and/or whether you are approaching a critical filing deadline. A provisional patent application (also referred to as a "provisional") and a nonprovisional patent application (also referred to as a "nonprovisional") are two different types of "utility" patent applications. This means that both of these types of patent application are intended to lead to legal protection of the new, useful and non-obvious "functional" aspects of an invention. By contrast, a "design" patent application may be used to obtain legal protection of the new, original and ornamental "appearance" of a product design. I'll discuss design patent applications in some other post, but you should know that design patent applications cannot be filed as a provisional. So, the entire topic of whether to file a provisional or nonprovisional is only relevant to utility patent applications filed in the United States Patent and Trademark Office. There are some very important differences between a provisional patent application and a nonprovisional patent application. So, it is important to understand these differences before you can make an informed decision about which type of utility patent application you should be filing.

It can be quite exciting to develop a new invention that you believe in and want to protect. But if you don't know how to protect your invention, this experience can also be daunting. So, you may want to engage a patent attorney that specializes in patent application preparation and prosecution. An experienced patent professional can help you avoid many potential pitfalls that can jeopardize your rights in the invention. However, before you set up an initial consultation with one or more patent attorney, you may be well-served to spend some time and effort preparing a high-quality Invention Disclosure.