Difference between revisions of "Patent allowance"

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(legal category of modern US patents)
 
(clarifications and copyedits)
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The term '''patent allowance''' appears regarding modern U.S. patent processing, not in the early aero period.  It means USPTO's patent examiners have certified that a patent application meets the usual gating criteria of novelty, feasibility, and usefulness.  The applicants are advised of this in writing.  Then the applicants must pay certain fees and file some paperwork, and THEN they are given the final patent grant.
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The term '''patent allowance''' refers to modern U.S. patent processing, not in the early aero period.  It means that [[USPTO]]'s [[patent examiners]] have certified that a patent application meets the usual gating criteria of novelty, feasibility, and usefulness.  The applicants are told this in writing.  Then the applicants must pay certain fees and file some paperwork, and then the patent will be granted.
  
The term appears in this paper by Heidi Williams and coauthors.  The authors never use the historically standard term "patent grant", but it's pretty clear from other sources that 99% of "allowed" patent filings are then "granted" within 3-6 weeks.<ref>* Patrick Kline, Neviana Petkova, Heidi Williams, and Owen Zidar. 2018/2019. [https://www.nber.org/papers/w25245.pdf Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms]. NBER Working paper 25245.</ref>
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The term appears in this paper, where the authors avoid the historically standard term "grant." It's pretty clear from other sources that 99% of "allowed" patent filings are then "granted" within 3-6 weeks.<ref>Patrick Kline, Neviana Petkova, Heidi Williams, and Owen Zidar. 2018/2019. [https://www.nber.org/papers/w25245.pdf Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms]. NBER Working paper 25245.</ref>
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We see analogous historic cases in our data where it appears that this happened, especially in Britain -- a filed and numbered patent had a fully formatted specification, but somehow wasn't granted.  It may well have been simply that the last fee was not paid. Our main interest is in technological history, so there's not much difference between that and a properly granted patent, but we should track these differences when possible.  A patent filing in this category ''should'' have a record in this database, marked as "not granted."
  
 
{{References}}
 
{{References}}
  
 
[[Category: Patent institutions]]
 
[[Category: Patent institutions]]

Revision as of 06:58, 10 October 2021

The term patent allowance refers to modern U.S. patent processing, not in the early aero period. It means that USPTO's patent examiners have certified that a patent application meets the usual gating criteria of novelty, feasibility, and usefulness. The applicants are told this in writing. Then the applicants must pay certain fees and file some paperwork, and then the patent will be granted.

The term appears in this paper, where the authors avoid the historically standard term "grant." It's pretty clear from other sources that 99% of "allowed" patent filings are then "granted" within 3-6 weeks.[1]

We see analogous historic cases in our data where it appears that this happened, especially in Britain -- a filed and numbered patent had a fully formatted specification, but somehow wasn't granted. It may well have been simply that the last fee was not paid. Our main interest is in technological history, so there's not much difference between that and a properly granted patent, but we should track these differences when possible. A patent filing in this category should have a record in this database, marked as "not granted."

References

  1. Patrick Kline, Neviana Petkova, Heidi Williams, and Owen Zidar. 2018/2019. Who Profits from Patents? Rent-Sharing at Innovative Firms. NBER Working paper 25245.