Aasbjerg "walking" table  

.
edit: and it is the second marked Aasbjerg piece known to the internet. And the first known to be marked with "Denmark" and "Pat Pending"

Wow
That thing is cool.

Oh, and apparently the feet c...
Oh, and apparently the feet can be re-positioned. I can't escape the feeling that there is something about this that I don't entirely comprehend, though. I suppose this is what was patented... (?)
But maybe it makes perfect sense to someone here.

from my understanding you...
from my understanding you can apply for a design patent (which i believe only last 15 yrs or so). using this you can patent a specific design of an item that already exists, ie. offset legs on this table or overall design of a table (or something like that, if its different enough of a design) where as a utility patent is given for a new invention. so in this case it may just be a design patent for the entire table. I know there are a bunch of design patents issued to Adrian Pearsall for his couches and chairs, there are actually copies of them for sale on ebay now.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/ADRIAN-PEARSALL-SOFA-PATENT-Mid-Century-Modern-6...
(I'm not selling these so I'm not trying to advertise them, just using this as an example.)
to attempt to answer your other question, as soon as you apply for a patent you can put "Pat. pending" on your item but if no patent is issued then there would be no record of it at the patent office. sometimes it can take years to issue a patent, if at all. hope that helps a little.
Edit: love the table BTW 🙂

Saw it sold out of Seattle on...
Saw it sold out of Seattle on Ebay back in December. Should have jumped on it.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Johs-Aasbjerg-Table-Denmark-Teak-Pat-Pend-As-Is-...

Patent documents on Ebay
I love that there are people who can type "patent" into the Ebay search box, but don't think to type the same thing into Google...
https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/p...

Ah: Google has digitized...
Ah: Google has digitized older patents than the patent office. That explains the Z-chair patent which doesn't appear in the patent office database because it is too old. But google brings up nothing comes up for "Aasbjerg."

And nothing relevant
in the EPO (European Patent Office) online database, either.