US provisional reference. In writing a US regular patent application,
I want to refer to a filed provisional, but do not need to claim the
provisional's priority date. Can I do this by referring to the
provisional in the Detailed Description only, or do I have to claim
the benefit of the provisional in the Cross-reference to Related
Applications?

Hello philipa,

I assume that you don't want to claim the date of the Provisional
(PPA) because the 20 year term would extend from the original filing
date instead of that of the Regular (RPA) patent. That being said, any
reference to other applications needs to be in the Cross-Reference to
Related Applications field. This will not, however, convert your PPA
to an RPA, and therefore will not revert to the date of the PPA.

Here's an extensive and probably the best online FAQ from the PTO site
for help with the rest of the application:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/pac/doc/general/

Thanks for your question.

boxcar

The answer made an incorrect assumption. Also, if I referred to the
provisional in the cross-references, at least one of the inventors of
the provisional needs to be in the regular application. This is not
true in my case (although both applications are assigned to the same
assignee).