Dead or alive: Statuses, patent expiries and kind codes – Part 2

I'm exploring statuses, patent expiries and kind codes in a three part series of articles. The first article on statuses can be found here.

This second instalment looks at patent expiries around the world.

Looping back to the article on statuses for a minute, patent term expiry dates are both theoretical and precise. Precise in that a definitive end date for the maximum patent term can be calculated, but theoretical in that other events occur to prevent the patent reaching that date. These events include non-payment of renewal fees (Ceased, Ended), and revocation of the grant of the patent (Revoked).

Patent Expiries

Let's get United States patent expiries out of the way. There are a couple of rules to follow, and I have covered those in an earlier article.