Determining the expiration date of a US utility patent would seem to be a simple matter of consulting 35 USC § 154 (a)(2), which states that a patent expires 20 years from the effective filing date of the patent application. The Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (“MPEP”) § 2701 elaborates that the 20-year term applies to all patents issued from applications filed on or after 8 June 1995, and given that most pre-1995 patents have expired, a patent, for all practical purposes, expires 20 years from its filing date. We are done, right? Read the full article here.