"Of course, there are a few original patent applications that take decades to issue as well, but this is due to secrecy restrictions, interferences, Board, district court or Federal Circuit appeals. See, e.g., U.S. Patent No. 5,132,080 (an original application was filed November 28, 1944 and the patent was not permitted to issue until July 21, 1992 due to secrecy restrictions); U.S. Patent No. 6,097,812 (filed July 25, 1933 and delayed due to secrecy until August 1, 2000); U.S. Patent No. 6,130,946 (filed October 23, 1936 and delayed due to secrecy until October 10, 2000). Pursuant to 35 U.S.C. §181, the Commissioner of the PTO must withhold the granting of any patent “[w]henever publication or disclosure ... by the grant of a patent on an invention in which the Government has a property interest might, in the opinion of the head of the interested Government agency, be detrimental to the national security.” Id. Although §181 only permits the Commissioner to delay patent issuance for up to one year, the secrecy can be renewed for an unlimited number of one year periods if it is in the interest of national security." in Mark A. Lemley, Kimberly A. Moore, Ending Abuse of Patent Continuations, Boalt Working Papers in Public Law (University of California, Berkeley), Year 2003, Paper 20, page 9, footnote 27.
ieee.org
ieeexplore.ieee.org
W. F. Heinze, Dead Patents Walking, IEEE Spectrum (2002). Consulted on November 26, 2009.
