How Long Does It Take To Get A Patent?

An inventor should be prepared to spend several years waiting for a patent to issue.  At present, the average time it takes a patent application to ultimately issue as a United States patent is 24.3 months.  One can expect a first office action roughly 16-18 months after submitting a non-provisional application for a patent, thus there is a significant amount of waiting in this process.  Most patent applications go through a process of being initially rejected by a patent examiner followed by a lengthy dialogue between the examiner and a patent attorney or agent preparing amendments and/or arguments as to why the examiner erroneously rejected the application.  A well researched and meticulously prepared patent application can shave months or years off of this process by avoiding unnecessary amendments or office actions.