Can USPTO employees provide information about patent expiration dates?
USPTO employees can provide general information about patent term calculation but are restricted from offering specific expiration dates for individual patents. According to MPEP 1701:
“Office employees may provide factual information regarding the calculation of patent term in general (i.e., a design patent term is 15 years-from-grant if the underlying design patent application was filed on or after May 13, 2015, and 14 years-from-grant if the design application was filed earlier). However, office employees should refuse to provide a determination or express an opinion addressing any patent owner or public inquiries as to a specific patent’s expiration date, except as provided above in items A-H.”
For specific patent expiration dates, the USPTO provides a downloadable patent term calculator as a public resource.
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