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 Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show Hillbilly Bears" cartoon segments were later repeated during the second season of "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour" (1969–1970), and all 52 "Atom Ant" and "Secret Squirrel" half-hours were syndicated as part of "The Banana Splits and Friends Show", an umbrella title for a package combining episodes of several different Hanna-Barbera series (the other series included "The Banana Splits Adventure Hour, The New Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", and "The Adventures of Gulliver"). The program contained six segments: The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show The Atom Ant/Secret Squirrel Show was an hour-long Saturday morning cartoon produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions from 1965 to 1967