How does the provisional patent strategy help with my IP protection?

A provisional patent application is a relatively simple application for which no examination is required by the patent office. Filing a provisional patent application not only allows the inventors to quickly secure a “priority date” of which the invention is filed, it also gives the inventors additional time to decide whether a regular patent application should be filed within the next 12 months. Given the much less cost and flexibility in filing, provisional patent before a regular (non-provisional) application has been one of the most cost-effective and widely-used strategies for intellectual property (IP) protection through patent filing.