Speaker 1: Not long ago, one of our viewers by the name of Novel Magic left me a comment and said, John, why didn't you do a video on the portal? And so I'm going to do that, Novel Magic. Thanks so much for the comment. I appreciate that. In today's video, I'm going to demonstrate step by step how to use the Patent Center at the USPTO website to file your own provisional patent application electronically. Now, just a warning, it takes about 20 minutes to file a provisional patent application using the USPTO website. I'm going to go through that step by step. And so if you're just watching this for the first time, you may want to speed the video up to double speed or to 2x to make this go more smoothly. Otherwise, let me suggest you play this video on your smartphone or on a tablet sitting next to the computer that you're using to file your application. That way you can file your application as I file mine and just follow along step by step doing what I do. Now, if you get stuck or have a question, leave your question in the comment section below. And from time to time, I'll go through and answer the questions and we'll try and create a frequently asked question database there so that others can benefit from your question. Now, if your provisional patent application hasn't been prepared yet and you need some help with this, let me suggest my book available on Amazon called Provisional Patents. This book is available on Kindle version or in softback or hardback. And in fact, the last time I checked, Amazon was giving the Kindle version away for free if you had Kindle Unlimited. The book is super helpful. It'll have everything you need to prepare and file your own provisional patent applications, including an example application, as well as some links to videos that will help you step by step with the preparation. Again, the book is Provisional Patents, available on Amazon, and I'll have a link to the Amazon website in the discussion section below. Now, the second thing you'll need to file your provisional patent application on the PTO Patent Center portal is a credit card to pay the official filing fees. Now, for an individual filer, earning roughly $185,000 or less, you can file as a micro entity and the filing fee for this is $60. For a small entity, for a business or a higher earner, the filing fee for a provisional patent application is currently $120 and it's $240 for a large entity. There's more information on the USPTO website and there'll be information when you get to the part about paying. And just be aware that the fees do change frequently, so don't be surprised if the fees are a little bit different from what I've quoted. Okay, let's jump into it. I'm going to go through it fairly slowly. You'll probably be able to get through it more quickly, especially if you're following along. Okay, let's start at the Google search page. I'm going to type in USPTO. And once we arrive at the USPTO homepage, we're going to select the Patents tab and then under Application Process, we're going to select Filing Online. Now we'll scroll down. This is fun reading, but we're going to select Open Patent Center and that will take us to the Patent Center homepage and we'll scroll down past Search for a Patent Application down to New Submissions. We'll select New Submissions and there'll be several choices for regular submissions. There'll be Utility Non-Provisional, Utility Provisional, Design Non-Provisional, and we're going to select Utility Provisional. Now there's a warning box that opens that warns that if you sign in as a guest user, you'll have access to new applications and to view public applications, but you'll want to sign in as a registered user if you want the full benefit of the website. And we're going to sign in as a guest for purposes of this application. Okay, we will press Continue here and this will take us to the Application Data Sheet Filing Options page for provisional applications. Now we're going to choose Web ADS, Web Application Data Sheet, and we'll select that. And along the left-hand column are the steps that we'll need to go through in completing this ADS. And the first thing that we'll need to do is add the inventor's name, and I'll be the inventor for purposes of this application. So I'll enter my name. Includes my street address, city, zip code. And I'll be the only inventor here, so there'll just be one inventor. And then the next piece of information is correspondence information. Now there's no customer number here unless you're a practitioner, so we'll provide instead an address, correspondence address, in order for the patent office to be able to contact us. And so we'll enter the United States of America, and then my address again, and this will be my correspondence address. And the email's entered three times, so I'm going to eliminate two of these. It's going to ask for the title of my invention, and I'm going to enter, just make up a title. It's probably not the best title. We'll call this System and Method. System and Method for eliminating jitter in video content. No attorney docket number is required. This is if you have multiple clients, you can enter the client's name, but there's no, it's not required. Now for the entity status, I'm going to be a small entity for purposes of this application. It's a provisional application. It's a utility application. Total number of drawing sheets is five. And I'll go down to a representative. I'm representing myself, so I won't need to fill in this page. There will be no separate representative here. Now the next choice is domestic benefit, national stage, foreign priority. First to invent a file. You can skip those. Those are not going to be applicable for purposes of filing a provisional patent application. And then authorization to permit access. There should be no authorization for foreign organizations to access a provisional application, but I am going to select applicant does not authorize in both cases. And then under applicant, I am the applicant, so there's, I can skip that. There's no assignee here. Assignee pertains to a transfer of your invention to a company. So if I was working for a company, I might be required to transfer my ownership of my invention to the company. But since this is on my own account, it's my invention, no assignee. And then the summary page gives me a chance to check over, make sure I've got everything entered correctly. And look for any blue highlights on information that wasn't entered. And then finally, I'm going to need to enter my signature. And the signature is easy to miss. I'm not quite sure why they have it hidden, but if you get to the end and haven't added your signature, they make you go back and do that. So the signature is added using backslash. So it's backslash your name, and another backslash, and then entering your first and last name. Now, there's no registration number unless you're a patent practitioner, so you can skip that. And there are no more signatures because there are no more inventors on this application. This is my application alone. All right, now we upload the signature. So I'm going to go ahead and upload the signature. And then I'm going to go ahead and upload the application alone. All right, now we upload the documents. And this is really easy to do. You can upload PDF or Docx documents. In this case, my specification is a PDF, so I'm going to browse files. I could drag my PDF and drop this into the upload box. Importantly, I need to enter a description here, and this is, again, easy to miss. But under the file name, there's a drop-down box for entering a description of the document. In this case, it's part of an application, and I'm going to just say it's my specification. So I'll select specification, and then I'll continue here. Now, in calculating fees, which is the next section, I'm a small entity. I have 10 pages. Again, this is another box that's easy to miss, so my specification is 10 pages long. There are no special petitions with this application, so I can skip that. And then I will continue here, and then I select the fees. And as a small entity, for a provisional patent application, my fee is $120. Now, there are no, I don't have any submission of sequence fees. This would apply if I was submitting a DNA sequence, for example, and there are additional fees for DNA sequence submissions, which don't apply to my simple application. Mine's a software application relating to eliminating jitter or shake in handheld video. Okay, total fees are $120, so I can continue here. And again, the summary page, I can type in my e-filer information. It'll request my name and email address, and I'll then submit this, and I get a filing receipt. And so this gives me an application number. I'll have the receipt date, and then I'll have the date of the application. I'll have the receipt date. It'll include the title of my application, information about me, and I want to print this or save this to a file folder somewhere. This is a very important document, obviously, and the application number is super important for me to access this later. Now, I can pay fees now, but I'm going to save myself $120 since this isn't a real application. So paying the fees now is recommended to save a late payment penalty. Pay fees now will take me to a credit card page, which would allow me to enter a credit card number and make payment of my fees. Okay, that's all there is to filing your own provisional patent application. If you have questions, leave them in the comment section below, and I'll try to get to them and answer them if there are questions that haven't been asked before in the comment section. Also, let me again suggest my book available on Amazon called Provisional Patents. I think it'll be super helpful in helping you prepare and file your own provisional patent application. Okay, that's it. I'll see you on the next video.