Requisites of a Patent Application: Claims and drawings technically not required on filing date

For as long as I can remember, in order for a nonprovisional utility patent application to be awarded the all important filing date you had to file a specification that adequately described the invention, at least one patent claim and at least one drawing if a drawing would facilitate in the understanding of the invention. Spec, claim, drawing was beaten into generations of patent attorneys as the requirements for getting a filing date. That all changed on December 18, 2013.

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