Today as I drove my son to school, we were discussing a project assigned by his History teacher. The teacher told his students to find items around their home that were marked with the abbreviation “pat. pending” or “pat. pend.” and make a list of these items. I asked my son if he knew what the abbreviation stood for and he answered that it meant “Patent Pending“. He explained this meant that an inventor had applied for a patent to protect his invention, but it hadn’t been granted yet. He explained his class was studying about some of the most important inventions in history and how their inventors had to apply for patents to protect their rights. Some of the inventors didn’t apply for patents and eventually lost out on any profits they could have made. I was very impressed with his answers.