Starting a product-based company without protecting the underlying Intellectual Property is as good as building a house in a public place. Time and again, I've had startups and researchers asking me "what now?" once a competitor replicates their product and markets it better. It is a cakewalk for established businesses to replicate your product and use their marketing experience to pose an existential threat to your business. Think about it. A resourceful businessman finds amazing IP-Free product ideas from "Amazon Launchpad", why would he not replicate them? Let alone small businesses, no company/product is copy-proof in this world. Samsung infamously copied Apple's iPhone design [1]. The Oreo cookie that we know today isn't an original recipe either [2]. The list goes on, apparently, some of the rip-offs are better than their originals [3]. While it is practically impossible to stop everyone around the globe from copying your ideas, it can certainly be curtailed to…

A provisional specification is the initial preliminary draft which gives a general description about the invention, an applicant intends to protect by way of patent. It is that stage where though the invention is still in the pipeline, but it can be still reproduced on a paper and the patent process can be initiated to secure a priority date.Need to file a provisional patent applicationWhile it is not mandatory to file a provisional patent application to start with the patent process, however, it is always recommended to file a provisional patent application when the invention is still in the development stage. This gives the following advantages:A. Secures a priority date: The date of filing the provisional patent application will be considered as the filing date which secures the date for the invention against any other similar invention in the same field on the same subject matter. Further, novelty and inventive…