Here is some great news for inventors:

On January 7th, the Federal Circuit issued a decision in Wyeth v. Kappos regarding the calculation of patent terms.

Previously, the USPTO would calculate the term of a patent as 20 years from the patent application’s filing date. But, as we have discussed previously, the USPTO has a huge backlog and many patents take years to be issued. So if your application takes five years to be issued, you essentially only have protection for 15 years.

After this decision, the term of the patent will still be calculated as maximum 20 years from the filing date, but also no less than 17 years after the issue date. This is great news for inventors!

For a more detailed explanation of the decision, go here: http://www.patentdocs.org/2010/01/the-federal-circuits-wyeth-v-kappos-decision.html

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2. Good News for Design Patent Holders
3. Doing a Google Patent Search
4. USPTO Considering Extending Provisional Patents
5. The Patent Reform Act of 2009