The conventional wisdom is that software patents are slow, expensive, attorney-required things. That’s true for non-provisional patents — the formally-claimed, examined documents that get issued as enforceable patents.

It’s not true for provisional patents. A provisional is a placeholder filing that locks in a priority date for 12 months. After 12 months, you have to file the full non-provisional (which DOES need an attorney and IS expensive). But during those 12 months, you can say “patent pending,” any other party who files later loses to your earlier date, and you’ve bought time to find a patent attorney without losing the priority race.

A provisional is filed online. By you. In about 90 minutes. For $65-320.

The actual process:

  1. Decide your entity status. Micro Entity ($65) if your gross income is under $228K and you’ve filed fewer than four prior US patents. Small Entity ($160) if your company has under 500 employees. Large Entity ($320) for everyone else.

  2. Create a USPTO Patent Center account at patentcenter.uspto.gov. Five minutes. Standard email-and-password signup.

  3. Write the disclosure. This is the substantive part. The provisional needs:
    • A title (the longer the better — captures more claim coverage)
    • Background (state of the art and what’s missing)
    • Summary of invention (the elements that combine into the novel system)
    • Detailed description (enabling disclosure — enough detail that a person skilled in the art could implement it)
    • Drawings (described textually if you don’t have figures yet; figures preferred)
    • Optional: informal claims (full claims drafting comes in the non-provisional)

    Total: 10-30 pages typically. You can write this yourself; it doesn’t need legal language. The standard is “would another engineer in your field be able to implement what you describe?” — which you, the inventor, are uniquely qualified to evaluate.

  4. Convert to PDF. Markdown → browser print → save as PDF. Or any text editor with PDF export.

  5. Upload via Patent Center. “New Submission” → “Provisional Application” → “Utility.” Fill the Application Data Sheet (your name, address, the entity’s name, etc.). Upload the PDF.

  6. Pay. Credit card. $65-320.

  7. Receive filing receipt. PDF with your application number. Save this. It’s the proof of your priority date.

  8. Use “Patent Pending” on any product surface. Legitimate from this moment.

  9. Calendar non-provisional deadline (12 months from filing). Engage a patent attorney by month 6 to draft the formal claims. Budget $5-15K for the non-provisional itself.

That’s the path. The bottleneck is the substantive writing — the disclosure. Once you have that, the actual filing is a 30-minute procedure.

What the provisional buys you:

  • Priority date locked. Anyone who files an overlapping invention later loses to you.
  • “Patent Pending” status. Communicates seriousness; deters casual copycats; signals investability.
  • 12-month runway to perfect the invention, find an attorney, draft formal claims.
  • Optional international filing window (PCT) within 12 months of the provisional — if your business goes international, this preserves your priority date globally.

What it doesn’t buy you:

  • An issued patent. You can’t sue infringers based on a provisional alone.
  • Examined claims. No USPTO examiner reviews a provisional. The substantive scrutiny is in the non-provisional.
  • Permanent rights. If you don’t convert to a non-provisional within 12 months, you lose the priority date.

Why this matters for early-stage founders:

The conventional advice — “see a patent attorney before doing anything” — is appropriate for non-provisionals. For provisionals, it’s a money trap. Attorneys charge $5-10K to file a provisional. The USPTO charges $65-320 for the same filing. The attorney’s value-add is some prosecution-strategy advice and some claim foreshadowing, both of which matter much more in the non-provisional than the provisional.

For a founder with limited capital but a real invention, the right move is:

  1. Write the provisional yourself. Be thorough.
  2. File yourself. Lock the date.
  3. Use the 12-month window to: build the product, generate revenue, qualify for legal budget.
  4. Engage a patent attorney for the non-provisional with the benefit of operational insight you didn’t have at provisional-filing time.

You’ve spent $65-320 for a year of priority-date protection. The non-provisional becomes a more focused, better-supported claim with an attorney who has more to work with than they would have had at month zero.

What we did:

For the rapptwin digital twin invention (10 elements that combine into one integrated preservation system — the bones of which are public RAPP, the operational layer of which is private), we wrote a 10,000-word provisional disclosure ourselves. Filed for $160 (Small Entity). Spent the rest of the day shipping product.

Total time from “we should patent this” to “patent pending”:

  • Substantive writing of the disclosure: about 4 hours (we’d already designed the system, so this was mostly converting design docs into legal-disclosure structure)
  • USPTO filing process: 75 minutes
  • Total: less than one workday

The lesson:

If you have an invention worth protecting, the priority date is worth $160. Don’t let “I need to find an attorney first” delay you. The attorney’s value-add comes later. The priority date is now.

The disclosure has to be substantive — provisionals can be informal in tone but must be enabling in content. If you’ve designed the system, you can describe it. Describe everything. Be specific. Cover edge cases and alternate embodiments. The non-provisional attorney will be very glad you did.

For the procedure: USPTO’s Patent Center quick-start guide covers the mechanics. Don’t overthink it. Click through, upload, pay, save the receipt.

90 minutes. $160. Date locked. Continue building.