Length of Patent Protection

Patents provide protection ranging from 14 to 20 years.

The United States Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) grants patent protection from fourteen to twenty years pending the type of patents filed with their office. The issue of the patent gives the inventor or the assignee the power to block someone else from manufacturing or from selling anything that uses the intellectual property described in the patent while the patent coverage is in effect. the USPTO does not renew patents.

Standard Patent Lengths

On or after June 8, 1995 the USPTO calculates the length of the patent protection from the day that the inventor files it with their office. Design patents that protect the visual aspect of an article last for fourteen years. Utility patents place a legal umbrella over a new product, a clever machine or process, or a unique composition of matter and they benefit from a total of twenty years. New varieties of plant receive also twenty years under a plant patent. Utility and plant patents issued prior 1995 have a life span of 17 years from the date of issue.

Early Termination

The patent life may be terminated prematurely under some limited circumstances. These include negligence when periodic payments of the patent maintenance fees lapse. Patent invalidation may surface when someone demonstrates to be in possession of material that was published or patented prior to the date of submission to the USPTO. Innacuracies in the list of inventors on the patent will cause patent invalidation.

Provisional Rights

The American Inventors Protection Act of 1999 introduced a new law requiring the USPTO to release to the public the content of any patent applications 18 months after it had been filed. Frequently the time of this release of the invention to the public comes months before the patent is issued. To help manage this gap, USPTO allows an applicant to assert provisional rights prior to patent issue date, which means that the inventor can receive royalty payments from the licensee prior to the date that a patent becomes active.

Pharmaceutical Patent Extension

Congress passed the Drug Price Competition and Patent Term Restoration Act (Hatch-Waxman Act) of to recognize the length of the development cycle of products, such as pharmaceutical drugs, who need to enter a lengthy regulatory process before receiving approval for its commercial marketing and market launch. Under this ruling, the patent life can be extended up to five years if the drug product was subject to a Food and Drug Administration regulatory aprroval. This five year extension keeps away the manufacturers of generic versions of the products.

Rate of Innovation and Patent Societal Value

The topic of defining an optimal patent life has raised controversy. The debate questions whether a patent life cycle allows the industry to respond to societal changes. From a practical angle, Ariel Pakes studied the value of patents and explained in a 1986 report that companies will renew their patent fees only if the patent gives them commercial leverage. Andrew F. Christie and Fiona Rotstein reported that only a minority of patents capitalize on the full patent life and more than half of them do not renew fees past the ten year mark.

References

• USPTO: Consolidated Patent Rules, Dec 17, 2008 (.pdf)
• USPTO: 2750 Patent Term Extension for Delays at other Agencies under 35 U.S.C. - 2700 Patent Terms and Extensions
• Jstor.org; "Patents as Options: Some Estimates of the Value of Holding European Patent Stocks"; Ariel Pakes; 1986
• Oxford Journals; "Duration of patent protection...?"; A. F. Christie et al.; 2008
• USPTO: Patent Term Extensions

Resources

• "Patent It Yourself"; David Pressman, J.D.; 2009