?—Documentation
Everything you need to use Provixer confidently — what it does, how to file, and every patent term we use, explained in plain English.
I—FAQ
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No. Provixer is a document preparation tool. We do not provide legal advice and using Provixer does not create an attorney-client relationship. We explain how the patent system works; we do not tell you whether your specific invention will be granted.
Yes. The generated PDF and DOCX are formatted to 37 CFR §1.52 and ready to upload to Patent Center. You file under your own name — no attorney required.
A provisional application lapses 12 months after filing. To keep your patent rights, you need to convert to a non-provisional (or file a PCT) before that window closes. Provixer tracks the deadline and emails you reminders at 90, 60, 30, 14, 7, 3, and 1 day out.
No. Your description, sketches, and drafts are never used to train models, never sold, and never shared with anyone. The only time your data leaves our servers is during the API calls needed to generate your draft — nothing is stored by the AI providers.
Yes. The Attorney Handoff add-on ($500 one-time, or included on Premium) gives you a clean disclosure document, claim chart, and prior-art dossier — everything a patent attorney needs to pick up where you left off.
If the 12-month window closes without a non-provisional being filed, the provisional lapses and any public disclosure you made based on it becomes prior art against you. Provixer's deadline tracker exists specifically to prevent this.
Everything you type is stored encrypted in your private workspace. You can export or delete any project at any time from your profile page. We never share invention data with third parties; the only outbound use is the AI provider calls required to generate your draft, and those providers do not retain your inputs.
Provixer runs a multi-stage AI pipeline tuned for patent work: one model specializes in structured extraction and prior-art search, another in long-form legal drafting, and a third performs an adversarial examiner-style review before you export. Premium plans upgrade the review model to a higher-capability reasoning tier. We don't disclose specific vendors or model names so we can swap them for quality and cost without affecting your experience.
Four tiers. Beta: free during the open beta — full claims builder, draft, and export with monthly caps. Core ($50/mo): one full filing per month. Pro ($100/mo): heavier-volume drafting for repeat inventors. Premium ($500/mo): unlimited drafts plus attorney-handoff package on every file. Paid tiers ship soon. See the pricing page for the full feature comparison.
II—Quick start
01
Write the description the way you'd explain it to a friend at a coffee shop. Include what it does, how it works, and what makes it different from existing products. You can upload sketches or a short video if you have them.
02
Provixer searches 11.4 million patents and returns a calibrated score (0–100) along with the specific prior art it found. Anything above 70 is generally worth filing on; anything below 40 usually means someone else got there first.
03
One click turns your invention into a six-section provisional: Title, Field, Background, Summary, Brief Description of the Drawings, and Detailed Description — plus a claim ladder with live antecedent-basis checking. Export as USPTO-compliant PDF or DOCX.
III—Glossary
If you see one of these terms anywhere in Provixer — in a novelty explainer, a claims-builder warning, a draft section — this is what it means.
Everything that already exists: patents, published applications, research papers, YouTube demos, product launches, anything public before you file. The USPTO compares your invention to prior art to decide if yours is new enough to be patentable.
35 U.S.C. §102
Whether your invention is actually new. If the exact same thing was already published, sold, or patented by anyone anywhere before you filed, it fails the novelty test.
35 U.S.C. §102
Even if nothing exactly matches your invention, the USPTO can still reject it if someone working in your field would consider it an obvious combination of existing ideas. This is the hardest rejection to overcome.
35 U.S.C. §103
A simpler, cheaper first filing that locks in your priority date with the USPTO. It gives you 12 months to decide whether to convert it to a full patent. A provisional by itself does NOT give you enforceable patent rights.
35 U.S.C. §111(b)
The full patent application that actually gets examined by the USPTO. If the examiner approves it, this is the patent that gives you real enforceable rights for about 20 years.
35 U.S.C. §111(a)
The date the USPTO uses to decide what counts as prior art against you. Filing a provisional locks in an early priority date, which protects you from anyone who publishes a similar idea afterward.
The United States Patent and Trademark Office. The federal agency that examines and grants US patents. You upload your application to their online portal.
uspto.gov
The USPTO's official online portal where you upload and file your patent application yourself, without a lawyer if you want.
The numbered sentences at the end of a patent that define exactly what is legally protected. Everything else in the patent (background, drawings, description) is context — the claims are the only part that matters in court.
Patents use a tree structure of claims: one broad 'independent' claim at the top, with narrower 'dependent' claims underneath that add extra details. The broader the independent claim, the more your patent covers.
A strict patent-writing rule: every time you say 'the widget' in a claim, you must have already said 'a widget' earlier. Sounds silly, but breaking this rule gets your claim rejected for being ambiguous.
35 U.S.C. §112(b)
The formal writing rules the USPTO expects in a patent: one-sentence claims, consistent terminology, specific transition words like 'comprising', and strict antecedent basis. Provixer handles all of this for you automatically.
35 U.S.C. §112
The rejection you get when a single prior-art document already describes every element of your invention. Short version: 'someone already published this exact thing'.
35 U.S.C. §102
The rejection you get when two or more prior-art documents could be combined to produce your invention, and the combination would be obvious to someone in your field.
35 U.S.C. §103
The rule that your invention has to actually be useful and do something concrete. Abstract ideas, laws of nature, and pure mathematical formulas are not eligible.
35 U.S.C. §101
The part of the law that says your patent application must describe your invention clearly enough that someone skilled in the field could actually build it from your description alone.
35 U.S.C. §112
A way of writing a claim using 'means for [doing something]' instead of naming specific parts. The USPTO limits what these claims can cover, so most modern patents avoid them.
35 U.S.C. §112(f)
An international patent filing under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. Lets you preserve your filing date in about 150 countries at once, so you can decide later which ones to actually pursue.
Patent Cooperation Treaty
A totally separate legal question from 'can I patent this?' — it asks 'can I actually sell this without getting sued for infringing someone else's patent?' Provixer does not answer FTO questions.
The USPTO's formatting rules for patent applications: paper size, margins, font, line spacing, numbered paragraphs. Provixer's export hits all of them automatically.
37 CFR §1.52
Two international systems (International Patent Classification, Cooperative Patent Classification) that categorize patents by technology area. Think of it like a Dewey Decimal system for inventions — helps you find relevant prior art.
A formal legal relationship with a licensed attorney, which creates confidentiality and fiduciary duties. Using Provixer does NOT create an attorney-client relationship.
Latin for 'for oneself'. In patent law, filing pro se means you're filing your own patent application without a patent attorney or agent.
The 12-month window after filing a provisional during which you must file a non-provisional (or a PCT) to keep your early priority date. Miss it and the provisional lapses.
35 U.S.C. §119(e)
The most common kind of patent — covers how something works or is made. When people say 'patent', they almost always mean a utility patent. Lasts ~20 years.
Covers how something looks — the ornamental appearance of an article of manufacture — not how it works. Shorter and cheaper than a utility patent; lasts 15 years from grant. Use it for shape, surface pattern, or visual styling that isn't purely functional.
35 U.S.C. §171