The patent has not “become active;” the reason it says ‘2020-01-01 Application status is Active’ in the timeline is because its current status (as of 2020-01-01

The patent has not “become active;” the reason it says ‘2020-01-01 Application status is Active’ in the timeline is because its current status (as of 2020-01-01) is Active. It actually became active on 2013-11-26 when it was granted and published. (If you look at any active patent it will show the same date, and if you look at this patent tomorrow it will show tomorrow's date instead.) This comes up every single time someone links to a Google Patents search; it's an incredibly misleading bit of UX design. [Edit: I'm glad to see that the title has been adjusted to remove the “becomes active” bit. It should probably still have (2013) added on the end, though.]