Provisional applications do not need a claim or a set of claims. An oath of the inventor declaring the inventor to be the original and true inventor is not necessary. However, some general possible reasons for filing a provisional application do exist. A provisional application serves to give inventors the enjoyment of a longer termination of the patent term, potentially a full 21 years after the filing of the provisional application. This extra time may be beneficial for inventions that will have a long commercial success.
Provisional applications are efficient both economically and temporally.
With its relaxed description requirement, a provisional application may consist of a doctoral thesis, technical manual, or other available documentation. Because the inventor may already possess documentation sufficient for the description requirement, and because claims are not needed, a provisional application could theoretically be assembled in just a few days. This form of application is appealing when attorney fees and time are desired to be minimized. However, since the provisional application's filing date may only be used as a priority date for a regular U.S. patent application, in order to perfect patent rights, additional time and money must later be expended. Provisional applications also allow the examination period of the patent to be delayed until the regular patent application is filed, which may be up to a year.