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 satisfied with this alteration, and sold the boat after owning it for only two years. After several different owners, She was finally bought in 1940 by a San Francisco patent attorney named Don Owen. Owen is the one who gave her the name "Pat Pending". After the attack on Pearl Harbor, all motor yachts in the San Francisco Bay area more than 40 feet long were drafted as submarine net patrol boats by the U.S. Navy. "Pat Pending" was stationed at the submarine depot on the Tiburon peninsula, and was given the task of guarding huge steel nets strung across