Patent Prosecution: Domestic Benefit and Foreign Priority Claims | Practical Law
A Practice Note discussing claiming domestic benefit or foreign priority to earlier filed patent applications to secure an earlier effective filing date. This Note explains the substantive and formal requirements for claiming priority to earlier provisional, nonprovisional, international (PCT), design, and foreign patent applications, as applicable, during patent prosecution, and the procedure for correcting improper or missing priority claims. This Note also discusses how priority claims affect patent term and the prior art status of issued patents and published patent applications.