The patent laws impose certain deadlines by which a patent application must be filed. An application must be filed (1) within one year of the first public disclosure by the applicant; and (2) before any public disclosure or filing by a third party who did not derive the invention from the applicant. Thus, while there is a one-year grace period for the inventors own disclosoures, it behooves the applicant to file as soon as possible, and preferably before any disclosure to a third party. The eliminates the problem of encounterin a third party disclosure derived from the applicant, but which cannot be proved was derived from the applicant.
As soon as valuable subject matter is in a sufficient state for filing, a prospective applicant should consider filing. Where developmenet is continuing, the applicant might consider a series of provisional patent applications, and combine these into a regular utilitiy patent application within one year of the first application’s filing date.