We received notice from the USPTO that the patent will be allowed. This just means the examiner has closed adjudication of the patent claims and states which claims will be allowed.
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So the last step is to pay the issuance fee, which we’ve done, after which the patent will be issued and published in the USPTO patent library.
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It’s exciting to get my first patent! I have several other ideas that may also be worth patenting, so hopefully this is the first of many. It was intimidating to approach this at first, but like most things, as the process unfolded it became less mysterious, and with the help of my excellent patent lawyer it was actually kind of fun. It took just over 18 months from first submitting the application to notice of allowance. I expect it will be 6-8 weeks more before I receive notice of issuance and publication, but it’s basically a done deal at this point.