Q: I filed a provisional patent for this. Do I have any protection with this? May 17 file date for walmart
I filed my provisional patent march 14 2016> They are only good for a year I believe...
A:
If you filed a provisional patent application on March 14, 2016 and took no further action, then that provisional patent application expired. An expired provisional application that was not used as a priority document for a later patent application gives you no rights to exclude others.
If you think Walmart had access to your idea through you rather than through independent invention, then you may have legal remedies. That would be very fact intensive and should be discussed with a patent attorney and not posted here.
Many people have good ideas that are later patented by others if they do not act to protect the idea.
If you published the idea or sold products with this idea in the product before the filing date for the Walmart patent, then you may be able to invalidate the Walmart patent but that would not give you patent rights. It would just mean that everyone can use the idea.
Again, this would be something to discuss with a patent attorney.
I hope that this information helps.
Kevin E Flynn
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