One of the most important attributes of a patent is its status, but different people can use the same terms to mean different statuses.
We know that with this inconsistency, confidently knowing you understand what is going on can be an unnecessary worry, so in Patently we will only use the following terms to describe patent statuses and the definitions of the terms will never change.
The three high-level statuses you will see most often will be In Force, Pending and Dead. These are shown by default on the C-Tree with the following colour scheme:
In Force - Patents that have been granted and (as far as we can tell from the data available) have paid all currently due annuity fees - i.e. the patent is alive and enforceable
Pending - Patent applications currently undergoing prosecution, that
Dead - Patents or patent applications that are no longer active. (Note, under certain circumstances, sometimes dead cases can be resurrected; if you find a dead case an want to keep an eye on it, just contact help@patently.com and we'll be happy to help.
Patents can 'die' for various reasons and we provide information in 'Detailed status' which is visible on the information card:
Abandoned - A patent application that never granted; the applicant 'gave up' the effort to get it granted
Refused - Similar to Abandoned but it was the examiners decision to
Expired while pending - Patents have a maximum potential life span (typically 20 years from the date of filing, but it varies slightly from country to country); if a patent application is filed and doesn't grant during this period it can just run out of time and expire while pending
Lapsed - When a patent is granted regular annuity fees are typically due to keep the patent alive and enforceable; if these fees are not paid and the patent if forfeited, we say the patent has lapsed
Revoked - Sometimes a granted patent, even one the applicant wants to keep alive, is revoked by the patent office. This can be
Expired - A granted patent that was important enough to the applicant to pay every annuity fee required until no more can be paid and the patent reached its maximum possible lifespan
US provisional reached end of life - US provisionals are as the name suggests 'place holder' applications giving the applicant 12 months to file a 'proper' patent application; it felt wrong and misleading to label these as 'Expired', so we came up with a more descriptive status.
PCT deemed expired at 36 months - With the exception of a handful of very rare exceptions, PCT applications give the applicant a period of 30 or 31 months to file national phase entries (NPEs). Applicants can tell the patent office that they want to file an NPE at 23:59 on the deadline, and then there is time delay for the information to get from the patent office to Patently; so we allow up to 36 months before we mark a PCT application as 'Dead' so you don't incorrectly assume there will be no NPEs too early.