Utility models and designs, where a country protects them, have shorter terms than inventions, the US and China add time for office delay, and the US, China and the EU add time for drug approval. Brazil is the odd row: until 2021 its law counted a minimum term from grant, and the Supreme Federal Court struck that rule down.
The base rule
In the United States the term "ending 20 years from the date on which the application for the patent was filed in the United States" comes from 35 U.S.C. 154(a)(2). If the application claims the benefit of an earlier one under sections 120, 121, 365(c) or 386(c), the 20 years run from the earliest such filing. A continuation or divisional therefore does not buy a fresh 20 years.
Article 63(1) of the European Patent Convention is shorter still: "The term of the European patent shall be 20 years from the date of filing of the application." Section 53(1) of the Indian Patents Act, 1970 says the same, and adds that for an international application designating India under the Patent Cooperation Treaty the 20 years are counted from the international filing date. In China, Article 42 of the Patent Law gives invention patents 20 years, utility models 10 and designs 15, all from the filing date. Section 53 of the Indian Act is the cleanest of the group: a 20-year rule, a renewal-fee rule, and nothing on adjustment or extension.
Compensation for office delay
Only two of the five systems compensate for slow examination.
The United States does it by statute. Under 35 U.S.C. 154(b)(1) the term is extended one day for each day of delay in three situations: the Office misses the 14-month deadline for a first action (the A delay), the patent has not issued within three years of filing (the B delay, with time spent on requests for continued examination and some appeals excluded), and certain proceedings such as derivation proceedings, secrecy orders and successful appeals take place (the C delay). Section 154(b)(2) then trims the total. Overlapping days are counted once, the adjustment cannot exceed the actual days the issuance was delayed, and time the applicant spent without reasonable efforts to conclude prosecution is deducted. A patent that was subject to a terminal disclaimer cannot be adjusted past the disclaimed date.
China introduced a comparable mechanism in the 2020 amendment of Article 42. Where an invention patent is granted more than four years after filing and more than three years after the request for substantive examination, the patent administration extends the term on the patentee's request to compensate for unreasonable delay, except delay caused by the applicant. It applies to invention patents only.
Europe, India and Brazil have no such mechanism in the provisions quoted above. The Brazilian position on adjustment is taken up again below.
Extensions for medicines awaiting approval
Three systems extend the term for the time a medicine spends in regulatory review.
In the US, 35 U.S.C. 156 caps the extension based on the review period at five years, and also caps the combined result: if the patent term left after approval, plus the extension, would exceed 14 years, the extension is cut back so the total does not exceed 14. As a hypothetical, a patent with 12 years left on the day of approval can gain at most two. Only one patent can be extended for the same product review period.
In the European Union the vehicle is the supplementary protection certificate under Regulation (EC) No 469/2009, granted nationally rather than by the EPO. Article 13 sets its duration as the period between the filing date and the first marketing authorisation in the Union, minus five years, with a ceiling of five years.
China's Article 42 provides that the compensation for a new drug "may not be more than five years" and that the total effective term after marketing approval may not exceed 14 years. The request is the patentee's to make; nothing is automatic.
India and Brazil have no equivalent in the texts above. Russia is outside this note.
The Brazilian floor that was struck down
Article 40 of Law 9,279/1996 gives invention patents 20 years and utility models 15, from filing. Its sole paragraph added a floor: no less than 10 years for inventions and seven for utility models, counted from grant. Where examination at the national office took many years, the floor decided the real end date, so the practical term could reach well past 20 years from filing.
In May 2021 the Supreme Federal Court (STF) declared the sole paragraph unconstitutional in ADI 5529, by a majority, and modulated the effects; see the STF report on the judgment. Applications still pending then take the caput term of 20 or 15 years from filing, whatever the examination time.
Patents already granted and in force with an extension were generally left alone, because the ruling looks forward from the publication of the judgment record. The exception is health: for granted patents on pharmaceutical products and processes and on health equipment and materials, the extension falls with retroactive effect, as the STF report on the modulation records. The judgment text should be checked for the exact scope in a given case.
The blog followed the decision as it happened, and its first report on the ruling records the initial reaction.
The terms side by side
| Jurisdiction | Base term | Office-delay adjustment | Regulatory-review extension |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | 20 years from earliest US filing relied on (35 U.S.C. 154(a)(2)) | Yes: A, B and C delays, with overlap and applicant-delay limits (154(b)) | Up to 5 years; at most 14 years after approval (156) |
| Europe (EPC) | 20 years from filing (Art. 63(1)) | None in Art. 63(1) | SPC, national: up to 5 years (Reg. 469/2009) |
| India | 20 years from filing; PCT: international filing date (s. 53(1)) | None in s. 53 | None in s. 53 |
| China | Invention 20, utility model 10, design 15 years from filing (Art. 42) | Invention patents: granted more than 4 years after filing and 3 years after exam request | Up to 5 years; at most 14 years after approval |
| Brazil | Invention 20, utility model 15 years from filing (Art. 40, caput) | None; the 10/7-years-from-grant floor was struck down in 2021 | None in Art. 40 |
Where the counts differ in practice
Two traps sit under the table. First, "20 years from filing" ignores what is actually claimed as the start date: in the US and the PCT route the earliest relevant filing, not the grant, is the anchor, so a long-pending family loses term to its own history. Second, the Brazilian row describes the law after the 2021 judgment, not the terms of patents granted before it, and the exceptions for pharmaceutical and health patents show how a single court order can produce different end dates for neighbouring patents.
How this part differs from earlier series
Part 14 of the divisional series on the United States and Part 15 on Europe cover divisionals and continuations, which do not restart the 20-year clock described here.
As of October 2026 these are the texts in force as quoted from the sources above. Rules on adjustment and extension are the ones most likely to be revised, so the sources, not this table, are what to check before relying on a date.