Once the patent application complies with the requirements of the relevant patent office, a patent will be granted further official fees, and in some regional patent systems, such as the European patent system, translations of the application into the official languages of the states in which protection is desired must be filed to validate the patent.

The date of issue effectively terminates prosecution of a specific application, after which continuing applications cannot be filed, and establishes the date upon which infringement may be charged.

In many countries the term of patent is determined solely by the filing date and mostly the term is for 20 years.