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
The Saint and the People Importers The Saint and the People Importers The Saint and the People Importers is the title of a 1971 mystery novel featuring the character of Simon Templar, alias "The Saint". The novel is credited to Leslie Charteris, who created the Saint in 1928, but the book was actually co-authored by Fleming Lee. It is a novelization of the 1968 episode "The People Importers" from the 1962-69 TV series, "The Saint", originally written by Donald James. The episode sprang from an original outline by Lee, though this was discarded by the time the story hit TV screens. For the novelisation Lee went