Exopharm Limited has made a further step towards a granted US Patent for its LEAP technology. Exopharm has been alerted to the web site of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) about the company's LEAP patent application and the further progress of that patent application (Application 17/147,033) (Application) under the United States National Phase. Upon inspection, the USPTO web site shows that the Examiner has upgraded the Application to `Notice of Allowance Mailed', indicating that the Examiner has accepted recent amendments to the Application, sees the Application as meeting their requirements and is ready to issue the requested patent (subject to some further steps and payment of fees). At this point a USPTO patent number has not been issued in relation to the Application and there are some formalities that need to be completed. Normally the US Patent would be issued around 8 weeks after the marked publication date (date which has not yet been set) and the payment of a fee by the Company to the USPTO. Upon publication the Application is open to objections by other parties. Normally the Company would make an announcement - giving patent number, the expiry date and its importance - upon the final grant of a patent, immediately upon completion. However, the Company wanted to ensure that this information was broadly available.