How to use the patent examination timing calculator
There is no request for examination in the United States. Korea, Japan and Europe make an applicant ask for examination within a set number of years or lose the application, but a US nonprovisional application joins the examiner's queue the moment it is filed, so there is no deadline to miss. What matters instead is how long the queue is and whether you pay to jump it, and that is what this calculator projects.
How the dates are counted — every figure on this page is measured in whole months from the same starting date and lands on the matching calendar day, with the last day of the month used when that day does not exist. Reply dates that fall on a weekend are shown rolled to the next business day, in line with 37 C.F.R. 1.7. The pendency figure is an estimate you supply, so treat the projected Office Action date as planning information rather than a legal deadline.
Legal basis — prioritized examination under 37 C.F.R. 1.102(e), known as Track One, carries a USPTO goal of final disposition within 12 months of the grant of prioritized status, and the Patent Prosecution Highway and petitions to make special based on the applicant's age or health offer other routes forward. A reply to an Office Action is due within the shortened statutory period, commonly 3 months, extendable to the 6-month statutory maximum under 35 U.S.C. 133 and 37 C.F.R. 1.136(a). Figures are current as of September 2026.
This calculator is for reference only and is not legal advice. Consult a registered patent attorney or agent about your specific situation.
Frequently asked questions
No. Filing a nonprovisional application is enough to place it in the examination queue, so there is no separate request and no three-year deadline of the kind used in Korea, Japan and Europe.
The USPTO publishes average first Office Action pendency on its Patents Dashboard, and the figure shifts with filing volumes and varies widely by technology center, so replace the starting value with the current number for your art unit.