Patent Attorney and Founder
The USPTO has become sharp over the last five years at spotting fake or masked domicile addresses. If an address even looks like a PO box, a UPS store, or anything close, they catch it. Every time. They’ll send an office action right away and tell you the address isn’t valid.
And there’s something else going on. The USPTO has pushed out a ton of updates this past month. One claim floating around on YouTube says this: “If your goal is to license your patent, all you need is a provisional. Getting a full patent is a waste of time and money.”
I disagree on several levels.
If you want to license a patent, you need an actual patent. That means filing a non-provisional application. That’s the full version. It goes to an examiner, gets reviewed, and, if approved, you get a notice of allowance. Then you pay the issue fee and receive your patent number. That patent is what gets licensed. That’s the asset.
Yes, some companies will look at a pending application, but that word, application, matters. A provisional isn’t a patent. There is no such thing as a “provisional patent.” It’s only a provisional patent application. And provisional applications aren’t examined. They’re light on rules, light on structure, and easy to file. You can even hand-draw the figures.
For new founders, a provisional can be helpful. It gets you on file, and filing first matters. The law changed years ago to reward the first inventor to file, not the first to invent. Filing a provisional is better than doing nothing, but it doesn’t give you any rights. None. Someone could file a provisional that says, “Hi, I’m JD,” and they’d still get an application number. But it’s worthless for licensing because it doesn’t describe an invention.
So yes, licensing deals do exist. But you still need a real patent if you want real value.
You also asked about business method patents for real estate. These can be patentable. If the system or process is new and uses tech in a useful way, you may have something. But here’s the catch with software and business methods: non-detectability. Even if you get a patent, it can be hard to know when someone is infringing. Many tools run in the background, and you can’t see what’s happening behind the scenes. Sometimes, a trade secret is the better call.
If you want help, reach out to us at Bold Patents for a free discovery call. We can walk you through whether the idea is worth pursuing.
On to the trademark question. When you file in the U.S., you must list two addresses:
- Domicile address (your real physical address)
- Mailing address (what gets published)
Your domicile must be real. A home. A building. Not a PO Box. If you don’t enter a separate mailing address, your domicile becomes public by default. But if you list a different mailing address, that one shows up publicly instead, and yes, a PO Box can be used there.
Phone numbers work the same way. You can use a Google Voice number. Your personal number doesn’t need to be public.
One warning: the USPTO is strict about domicile addresses now. If they think you used a PO Box or anything close, they’ll flag it. And here’s the new twist: they’re now charging $100 when they have to push back on an address issue. That fee didn’t exist before. We used to press the limits a bit to protect clients, but now every USPTO correction triggers that charge.