The filing date is often a year after the provisional was filed, and the invention was already marketed. That doesn't mean that the provisional wasn't novel.
Yes, I understand and agree. I was correcting the OP of this thread, and got downvoted. I'm a patent attorney, what do I know. LOL. So many strong opinions about patents flying about.
Small but significant correction: software patent that was not obvious to someone skilled in the field AS OF THE FILING DATE (or priority date).