The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) announced a collaborative deferred-fee provisional patent application pilot program for inventions that combat COVID-19, an outbreak that generated a global crisis in urgent need of creative solutions.

The new USPTO program highlights are:

1.Cost of provisional application is deferred until it is converted to non-provisional

2.Application must combat COVID-19 and require FDA approval

3.Content of provisional will be published (presumably immediately)

To disseminate information about inventions designed to combat COVID-19 on a more expedited basis while still securing rights for inventors, the USPTO is implementing a deferred-fee provisional patent application pilot program. The intent is to provide a cost-effective way for inventors to disclose their ideas to others quickly, but without losing their right to claim what is described and enabled by their disclosure.

This expedited disclosure may allow the public to benefit from the efforts of inventors seeking to address the COVID-19 outbreak sooner than would otherwise be possible. Early public disclosure can facilitate collaborations, partnerships, or joint ventures, and, in turn, spur and expedite the development of critically needed technologies. By making their disclosures available, applicants can contribute to the public in the fight against COVID-19 while protecting their patent rights.

Program participants will submit a technical disclosure as well as a provisional application cover sheet and a certification and request to participate in the program. The Office will upload the technical disclosure and the form into a searchable public collaborative database and process the technical disclosure and the cover sheet as a filing of a provisional application. In exchange for the disclosure of the technical subject matter, program participants may defer payment of the provisional application filing fee until such time as a nonprovisional application claiming the benefit of the provisional application is filed. The basic filing fee does not need to be paid at all by those who desire publication of the technical subject matter in the collaborative database but do not make a benefit or priority claim in a corresponding later-filed application.

To qualify for the program, the subject matter disclosed in the provisional application must concern a product or process related to COVID-19, and such product or process must require Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for COVID-19 use, whether such approval has been obtained, is pending, or will be sought prior to marketing the subject matter for COVID-19.

The program is scheduled to accept applications for 12 months beginning on September 17, 2020. The program is reserved for provisional patent applications filed under 35 U.S.C. 111(b). No nonprovisional patent application or international application designating the United States is eligible for participation.

For more information on the deferred-fee provisional patent application pilot program, please read the full notice.