A patent is not required for L-1B specialised knowledge. Filing readiness depends on existing eligibility and supporting evidence, not the completion of an intellectual-property process.
Check the relevant milestones
Confirm the employee possesses the claimed knowledge, has the qualifying employment history and will use it in the proposed U.S. role. If those facts are established, a pending patent may be background rather than a reason to delay.
Separately allow for document preparation, the selected adjudication route and any visa or admission steps; no technology milestone guarantees immigration timing. Waiting for a patent is unlikely to be the right milestone, both because the standard does not require one and because the application process runs on a timescale unrelated to any transfer. Identify the milestones that actually matter: the U.S.
assignment being defined, the employee's qualifying foreign employment being documented, the technical account being completed and reviewed, and the corporate relationship being evidenced. Any of those may take time; a patent grant is not among them. Where an application is genuinely pending and relevant, it can be mentioned as a fact without the case depending on its outcome.
The employee should meet the requirements at the time of filing, so a delay is justified only where something factual will change within it rather than where the description might be improved.