Patent pending an offense, which permits theoretical damages in the hundreds of millions of dollars for high-volume consumer goods. The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act revised section 292 to say that only the United States may sue for that penalty but that a person who has suffered a competitive injury may sue for recovery of damages adequate to compensate for the injury. A provisional application, like any other patent application, also allows the applicant to use the term "patent pending". Numerous characters have assumed the name Pat Pending since at least the 1960s, notably Professor Pat Pending of cartoon series Wacky Races; the
Pat Pending patrol boat, where she served from 1941 until 1944. After She was decommissioned, "Pat Pending" was then sold back to the Owen family in 1944, and is still owned by them today. "Pat Pending" was originally owned by Lloyd Bacon, who bought the boat in 1929 from the Lake Union Dry Docks in Seattle, Washington. The boat was initially named "Ligntnin"' in honor of Bacon's father's most famous Broadway work. Originally built at 44'-3", Bacon had the boat lengthened to its present 50' in 1930 in the hopes of making it faster for offshore powerboat racing. However, Bacon was not