The Provisional Patent Deadline: What Happens at 12 Months

A provisional application holds an inventor’s filing date for one year (35 U.S.C. 119(e)(1)). The calendar around it is short, fixed by statute and the same for every applicant, which makes it straightforward to plan around once it is laid out.

This post describes the rules in general terms; a registered practitioner should be consulted about the dates in any specific application. Every rule and fee below was checked against its source on October 8, 2026.

Timeline at a glance

Each date is counted from the provisional’s filing date, the day the USPTO receives its specification (35 U.S.C. 111(b)(4)):

1. Filing day. The provisional is pending. “Patent pending” may be used, and the Paris Convention priority year begins (USPTO, Provisional Application for Patent).
2. Month 12. The last day to file a nonprovisional application, or an international application designating the United States, that claims the provisional’s benefit (35 U.S.C. 119(e)(1)). The same day ends the provisional’s pendency: under 35 U.S.C. 111(b)(5) it is regarded as abandoned and cannot be revived.
3. Month 14. The outer limit for restoring that benefit by petition under 37 CFR 1.78(b), available only when the later application was filed in the two months after month 12 and the delay was unintentional.

A provisional filed on Wednesday, October 14, 2026 reaches month 12 on Thursday, October 14, 2027. Month 14 is not a second deadline to plan toward; it is a narrow remedy with conditions.

What “abandoned” means

Abandonment here is not a penalty, and it does not mean something went wrong. A provisional is built to expire. At month 12 it is “regarded as abandoned” by operation of law (35 U.S.C. 111(b)(5)); the USPTO’s provisional page says it “automatically becomes abandoned” when its pendency ends. Three things follow from that:

• The provisional never becomes a patent itself. The USPTO says a provisional “cannot result in a U.S. patent” unless a nonprovisional claiming it, or a petition to convert it, is filed within the 12 months.
• Its date survives only through a later application. If a nonprovisional or international application claimed its benefit in time, that application keeps the provisional’s date for what the provisional describes (35 U.S.C. 119(e)(1)).
• Public disclosures weigh differently. The USPTO notes that an inventor who disclosed the invention publicly during the year, and then lets the year pass with no later filing, may lose more than the date, because the disclosure can count against a later application (35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) and (b)(1)).

The one exception is restoration, and it is narrow. If the nonprovisional or international application is filed within two months after month 12, the benefit of the provisional can be restored on a petition stating that the delay was unintentional (37 CFR 1.78(b); MPEP 211.01(a)). The Director may ask for more information about the delay. The petition fee is $2,260, or $904 for a small entity, or $452 for a micro entity (37 CFR 1.17(m)(3), USPTO fee schedule effective January 19, 2025, last revised August 14, 2026). The provisional itself stays abandoned; what is restored is the later application’s claim to its date.

Provisional vs nonprovisional

The two applications do different jobs. Fees in the table are from the USPTO fee schedule effective January 19, 2025, shown as standard, small entity and micro entity.

The nonprovisional figure is the filing-stage total. Excess claims, size and non-DOCX fees can add to it, and patent.click’s fee table is the canonical list of government fees.

Written-description support

A nonprovisional takes the provisional’s date only for what the provisional describes. Section 119(e)(1) gives the later application the earlier date for an invention “disclosed in the manner provided by section 112(a)” in the provisional. Section 112(a), in turn, asks for “a written description of the invention, and of the manner and process of making and using it,” in terms that let a skilled person make and use it.

The Federal Circuit applied that test to a provisional in New Railhead Manufacturing v. Vermeer Manufacturing, 298 F.3d 1290 (2002). As WilmerHale summarized the case, the patent claimed a drill bit set at an angle to its housing, but the provisional neither described the angle nor showed the bit attached to the housing. The claims lost the provisional’s date, and a commercial sale made more than a year before the utility filing, though less than a year before the provisional, invalidated them. The inventor had in fact possessed the angled design. That did not help, because the adequacy of the description is measured “from the face of the application.”

The case predates the America Invents Act, but the requirement it applied is still the one section 119(e)(1) names. The USPTO’s own advice is shorter: it recommends that the disclosure in a provisional “be as complete as possible.” Under first-inventor-to-file, a claim that falls back to the later filing date faces the prior art as of that later date.

Foreign filing in the same 12 months

The provisional also starts a clock abroad. MPEP 201.04 calls it “a regular national filing that starts the Paris Convention priority year.” Under Article 4C of the Paris Convention, the priority period for patents is twelve months from the first filing, the day of filing is not counted, and a last day on which the office is closed moves to the next working day.

WIPO describes two routes that use that year:

• The Paris route. Separate applications in each Paris Convention country, filed within 12 months and claiming the first filing’s date.
• The PCT route. One international application under the Patent Cooperation Treaty, filed within the same 12 months. The national phase, where each country’s office decides on a patent, usually begins at 30 months from the earliest filing date.

An international application that designates the United States can itself claim the provisional’s benefit under 35 U.S.C. 119(e)(1). Disclosure rules abroad differ from the U.S. grace period in 35 U.S.C. 102(b)(1): the USPTO notes that a disclosure protected in the United States “may preclude patenting in foreign countries.” Which countries fit an invention is a question for a registered practitioner.

Weekends, holidays and patent term

If month 12 lands on a Saturday, Sunday or federal holiday in the District of Columbia, the provisional’s pendency runs to the next business day (35 U.S.C. 119(e)(3); 37 CFR 1.7(b)). The shift is written into the statute; no petition or fee is involved. MPEP 201.04 gives an example: a last day of Saturday, January 15, 2000 moved past the Monday holiday to Tuesday, January 18, 2000.

The provisional year also does not count against the patent term. A utility patent’s term ends 20 years from the filing date of the U.S. application, or of the earliest application it references under sections 120, 121, 365(c) or 386(c) (35 U.S.C. 154(a)(2)), and section 154(a)(3) says priority under section 119 “shall not be taken into account” in that measurement. MPEP 201.04 puts it plainly: “The domestic priority period will not count in the measurement of the 20-year patent term.”

The route makes a difference, though. The USPTO says that filing a nonprovisional that references the provisional can extend the term’s end by as much as 12 months, while converting the provisional itself by petition under 37 CFR 1.53(c)(3) measures the term from the provisional’s filing date.

Where the $799 conversion fits

patent.click prices the utility step as one flat fee. Its $799 utility conversion is a full utility application, filed within the 12-month window with the provisional’s specification as its foundation, and government fees are passed through at cost (the filing, search and examination fees in the table above, under the USPTO fee schedule effective January 19, 2025).

The provisional before it is $199 flat. Software prepares the draft and puts it through an adversarial review; then an independent USPTO-registered patent agent or attorney reviews it and, if it earns their signature, signs and files it under their own registration. They may refuse, and the refusal is final. Government fees are at cost, and there is no filing, no charge.

patent.click is in preview: orders are recorded, but nothing is filed with the USPTO or charged yet. It is not a law firm, gives no legal advice, cannot promise a patent, and is not an invention promoter under 35 U.S.C. 297. The pricing page sets out both prices, and Order your provisional · $199 records an order.

For the fees on each side of month 12, see what a provisional costs; for what the year lets an inventor say, see what patent pending means.