"In the United States, under current patent law, the term of patent, provided that maintenance fees are paid on time, are:
For applications filed on or after June 8, 1995,[1] the patent term is 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. application to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications).[2] For applications that were pending on and for patents that were still in force on June 8, 1995, the patent term is either 17 years from the issue date or 20 years from the filing date of the earliest U.S. or international (PCT) application to which priority is claimed (excluding provisional applications), the longer term applying.[3][4]
As of 2012 all U.S. patents issued in old(<1995) form are "free", and all patents filed before the date of June 8, 1995 would be in"public domain" on 8 June 2015.
The patent term in the United States was changed in 1995 to bring U.S. patent law into conformity with the World Trade Organization's Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) as negotiated in the Uruguay Round. As a side effect, it is no longer possible to maintain submarine patents in the U.S., since the patent term now depends on the priority date, not the issue date.
Design patents, unlike utility patents, have a term of 14 years from the date of issue."
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