THE PRIORITY DATE

The Priority Date is a very important date in the timescale for patenting a new idea or invention, since it is the date of first filing the patent application describing the idea or invention, at the Intellectual Property Office, and therefore causes a metaphorical clock to start ticking  during the lengthy process towards eventual grant of a patent for the invention, which can take up to four and one half years measured from the Priority Date.

Some may argue that the use of the word "idea" is not correct, since an idea is not an invention.   However, you must start somewhere, and the establishment of the Priority Date, via the date of filing of the first patent application describing  only an idea, even if it is not yet an invention, (i.e. where the patent application is only describing the basic concepts that you have, in the form of an identified need, with only a partial solution to that need) at least shows the world, via your first filed patent application, what it is you are attempting to protect.  

When the final, definitive version, of the patent specification describing an invention, is filed as a patent application at the Intellectual Property Office,  at no later than twelve months measured from the date of filing of the first patent application, one can decide on which of the earlier filed patent applications one wishes to be associated with this final definitive version of the patent specification.  If one wishes to retain the earliest Priority Date, then this, and all of those patent applications following it in terms of the date of filing of that first patent application can be requested to be associated with it at the "twelve months since filing the first patent application", stage. 

If you wish to dealy the onset of official fees at the Intellectual Property Office, you can elect to associate the patent application containing the final definitve version of the patent specification with the second filed patent application, thereby abandoning the first filed patent application, and thereby establishing a later Priority Date.  Of course, by doing this, you do run the risk that you then fall behind someone having intellectual property which is similar to yours, so the final decision thus has to be based on what you may have discovered in your researches, and whether or not you are willing to take a gamble.    

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