The figure below shows you a compact characterization of the hourly average temperatures for the quarter of the year centered on February. The horizontal axis is the day, the vertical axis is the hour of the day, and the color is the average temperature for that hour and day.
The average time it takes to obtain a patent from the patent office at this time is about 32 months or a little under 3 years. [See the current wait time statistics at the USPTO website [ here ] (best viewed with Internet Explorer)].
As for time, it really varies. I've seen software patent registrations are taking, again, on average, about two and a half to three years. Sometimes it takes less time, sometimes more - there is no magic number. The US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) offers a dashboard that unpacks all kinds of patent information.