Submarine Applications
Submarine patent applications are applications that pend secretly for an extended amount of time before becoming disclosed to the public by publication. “Classic” submarine patent applications, which were kept pending for years or even decades by filing multiple continuation applications, are generally no longer possible due to the implementation of a publication policy at the USPTO. In addition, the USPTO has changed its policy regarding the term of a patent. Formerly the term of a patent was 17 years calculated from the issue date. Now, applications filed on or after 8 June 1995 have a term that is 20 years from the earliest filing date. This makes the submarine patent applications less likely to have major impact because the extended length of pendency decreases the number of years that the granted patent is enforceable.
In general, U.S. applications filed on or after 29 November 2000 are published 18 months after the priority date, unless a non-publication request is filed. Non-publication is only allowed for applications that have not been filed in a jurisdiction that publishes applications. This means that most, if not all, unpublished applications have been filed only in the U.S., because essentially all other countries publish patent applications. Despite the publication rule, some applications can fail to publish in a timely manner. In other cases, the disclosure was made initially in a parent application that was filed before 29 November 2000, but did not publish until 18 months after a continuation was filed. In still other cases, the application was filed with a non-publication request, which was later rescinded.
The following eight applications, all assigned to Monsanto, might be considered “submarine” applications because the subject matter disclosed in the application pended in the patent office for extended periods of time before being published.
Patent Publication No. 20060236419
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 6 years 5 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
20060236419
|
Title – Nucleic acid molecules and other molecules associated with plants and uses thereof for plant improvement
|
Monsanto |
|||
Remarks |
To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. |
Patent Publication No. 20070016974
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 7 years 4 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070016974A1
|
Title – Nucleic acid molecules and other molecules associated with plants
|
Monsanto |
|||
Remarks |
To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. |
Patent Publication No. 20070020621
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 6 years 5 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070020621
|
Title – Genomic plant sequences and uses thereof
|
Monsanto |
|||
Remarks |
This application was filed on 23 March 2001, but did not publish until 25 January 2007. In this case, it appears that the applicants initially filed a non-publication request, but later rescinded it in March of 2004. Theoretically, it should have pubished shortly after that, but it didn’t actually publish until January 2007. To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. |
Patent Publication No. 20070039076
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 7 years 7 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070039076
|
Title – Plant genome sequence and uses thereof
|
Monsanto |
||||
Remarks |
To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. |
Patent Publication No. 20070044171
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 7 years 2 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070044171
|
Title – Nucleic acid molecules and other molecules associated with plants
|
Monsanto |
|||
Remarks |
The corresponding patent (US 7214786) has been issued, which has two claims left that are drawn to two sequences: a recombinant polynucleotide of SEQ ID NO: 28,864 and a recombinant polypeptide of SEQ ID NO: 134,446. We have no information that a corresponding patent application has been filed in any other country besides the USA. |
Patent Publication No. 200700661916
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 5 years 9 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | |||
---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070061916
|
Title -Nucleic acid molecules and other molecules associated with plants and uses thereof for plant improvement
|
Monsanto |
|||
Remarks |
To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. |
Patent Publication No. 20070067865
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 6 years 10 Months
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070067865
|
Title – Nucleic acid molecules and other molecules associated with plants and uses thereof for plant improvement
|
Monsanto |
|||||||
Remarks |
To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. This application is a continuation of US Patent Application 09/654,617, which was filed on 5 September 2000, and subsequently abandoned. The parent application was never published. In effect, the subject matter of Application No. US 2007/67865 A1 pended in secret for more than 6.5 years before it was published. |
Patent Publication No. 20070083945
Length of pendency before publication: approximately 7 years 1 Month
Publication No. |
Title, Independent Claims and Summary |
Assignee and licensing information | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
20070083945
|
Title – Nucleic acid molecules and other molecules associated with plants
|
Monsanto |
||||
Remarks |
To the best of our knowledge, there are no foreign-filed applications corresponding to this one. |