This section is from the book "Popular Law Library Vol5 Sales, Personal Property, Bailments, Carriers, Patents, Copyrights", by Albert H. Putney. Also available from Amazon: Popular Law-Dictionary.
Section 4894. All applications for patents shall be completed and prepared for examination within one year after the filing of the application, and in default thereof, or upon failure of the applicant to prosecute the same within one year after any action therein, of which notice shall have been given to the applicant, they shall be regarded as abandoned by the parties thereto, unless it be shown to the satisfaction of the Commissioner of Patents that such delay was unavoidable.
Under such circumstances it is not the invention which is regarded as abandoned, but the application.31
 
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