By Dennis Crouch
The outcome of the Novartis v. Lee case is that the vast majority of recently issued patents that include an RCE in the file history are due additional patent term adjustment (PTA). For most cases, the additional term adjustment will simply be the number of days between the notice of allowance and the issue date. I pulled up the file histories for about 1,000 patents issued in early 2014 in order to create the following histogram that shows the number of months between the Notice of Allowance and the Patent Issuance. The chart shows that the vast majority of cases issue within 3-4 months of the NOA — an average of 120 days.
The decision is unclear about how multiple NOAs will be treated. For the chart above, I used only the date of the final notice of allowance preceding patent issuance.
Under USPTO regulations recently, a request for reconsideration must be filed within two months after a patent is granted. 37 CFR ยง 1.705(b).