What is a Notice of Allowance?

Key Facts

• Form: PTOL-85, the Notice of Allowance and Fee(s) Due
• Issue fee deadline: 3 months from the mailing date, with no extensions of time available under 37 C.F.R. § 1.136
• Publication fee: $0 since 2014, so the issue fee is the only payment
• Time to grant: Typically 4 to 8 weeks after the issue fee is paid, with the issue date announced on an Issue Notification about two weeks before
• Missed deadline: The application is abandoned and must be revived by petition for unintentional delay

What Arrives With the Notice

The notice is usually accompanied by a Notice of Allowability that lists the allowed claims, any examiner's amendment made by telephone, the reasons for allowance, and any outstanding formal requirements such as corrected drawings. Read the reasons for allowance carefully: statements on the record can narrow how the claims are later construed, and the applicant may file comments to rebut them.

Decisions Before Paying the Issue Fee

The window between allowance and payment is the last point at which several things are cheap or possible at all:

1. File a continuation: A continuation must be co-pending with the parent, so it has to be filed before the parent issues. Docket the continuation decision to the issue fee date, not the issue date.
2. Disclose late-found prior art: An information disclosure statement after allowance needs a fee and statement; after the issue fee it needs an RCE or the Quick Path IDS program.
3. Check entity status: Small and micro entity discounts apply to the issue fee, but claiming a status the applicant no longer qualifies for is a false statement. Recertify before paying.
4. Review inventorship and assignment: Correcting inventorship is simpler before issue. Confirm the assignment is recorded so the patent prints with the correct assignee.
5. Consider patent term adjustment: The PTA calculation prints on the notice. Requests for reconsideration are due within two months of grant.

Withdrawing From Issue

If a problem surfaces after payment, the applicant can petition to withdraw the application from issue under 37 C.F.R. § 1.313, for example to file an RCE with new art. Once the patent issues, the remaining tools are a certificate of correction, reissue, or reexamination, each of which is slower and more public.

Tracking Allowance Across a Portfolio

Allowance is where maintenance cost begins. An issued patent starts the clock on maintenance fees at 3.5, 7.5, and 11.5 years, so portfolio teams increasingly make the first keep-or-drop decision at allowance rather than waiting for the first fee. ArcPrime's portfolio management tooling flags allowed cases whose claims no longer map to a product so the continuation and issue fee decisions are made deliberately.