The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began to allow deferral of fees for provisional patent applications on inventions related to COVID-19. This pilot program, which began on September 17, 2020, will be in effect 12 months until September 17, 2021.
Under the program, payment of the provisional application filing fee can be deferred until the filing of a corresponding non-provisional application on several stipulations such as: (i) applicants must agree that the technical subject matter disclosed in their provisional applications will be made available to the public, (ii) the inventions of product or process must be related to COVID-19 use, and (iii) the applications must be submitted in DOCX format via the Patent Center.
For a summary of the deferred-fee provisional patent application pilot program, read here. For more information on the pilot program, read the full notice.