Answer to Duncan and Joff

Duncan Bucknell and Joff Wild, both have excellent blogs and have asked a simple question regarding patent expiration dates.

Namely, why do patents not have the expiration date printed on the cover?

The answer is because for any given patent, the actual date the claims will be dedicated to the public at the time of grant is unknown. In the US, it could be somewhere between 3, 7 or 11 years from grant, or 20 years from filing, or something else entirely because of a certain drugs approval process. Having an expected expiration date on the cover would likely cause more confusion than it would clear. Unfortunately and annoyingly, one almost always has to check the file wrapper.

Hope that helps.

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