今天在阅读文献的时候看到这样一句话
The prior art patent search produced 529 granted patents and 435 patent applications totaling 964 patents over the specified 33 year time range.
其中的granted patents 和 patent applications 不太理解，我在网上查到了这样的解释：
About patent status：Application Vs Granted - 知乎 (zhihu.com)
A granted or issued US patent is an actual patent. It can be enforced in court if someone infringes - or trespasses - on the claims of the patent. The claims are the section of the patent which defines the patent right that has been given.
A US patent application is a request to obtain a patent. US patent applications are usually published 18 months after the initial filing date.
The claims in a patent application may change after publication, and in fact usually do change. This is because the US patent examiner will compare the claims to the prior art, and may require the applicant to change the claims in order to obtain a granted patent. The prior art is everything published before the initial filing date of the patent, everywhere in the world and in every language.
Sometimes US patent applications become abandoned before they are granted. This can happen for many reasons. For example, the examiner may find prior art that shows that the invention in the patent application isn’t new (novel) or is too similar to the prior art (obvious).
翻译过来就是：
A granted patent 是实际专利。如果有人侵犯或侵入专利的权利要求，则可以在法庭上强制执行。权利要求是专利中定义已授予专利权的部分。
A patent application是获得专利的请求。美国专利申请通常在初始申请日后18个月公布。
专利申请中的权利要求在公布后可能会发生变化，事实上通常会发生变化。这是因为美国专利审查员会将权利要求与现有技术进行比较，并可能要求申请人更改权利要求以获得授权专利。现有技术是在专利初始申请日期之前以每种语言公布的所有内容。
有时，美国专利申请在获得批准之前就被放弃了。发生这种情况的原因有很多。例如，审查员可能会发现现有技术表明专利申请中的发明不是新的（新颖的）或与现有技术过于相似（显而易见）。
这两者分别对应中国专利的“专利申请公开”和“专利授权”两者状态。
