[egdod]

It’s not at all unheard of for a patent to take 5 years to be granted. Do those folks just lose out? Or do we base patent term on issue date instead of filing date? (NB: it used to be that way, and it invited all sorts of gamesmanship.)

[choward]

Maybe if they only lasted five years there wouldn't be as many applications since they wouldn't be as valuable so processing could be faster.