Breaking the Seal (Statistics on Continuations and Divisionals)

Today I am looking at statistics on continuing applications. This post was motivated by two questions that I wanted to explore: Question 1: Should I take…

Design Patent Rejections – Update

Foreword: To date, the BigPatentData Blog has given little no attention to design patents. This is because I barely know the difference between a design patent and…

A Fifty-Eight(!) Reference Obviousness Rejection

Last week a friend complained to me about an obviousness rejection that cited 8 references. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I told him to be…

U.S. Patents to Foreign Inventors

There seems to be a fair amount of concern, or at least discussion, lately about how many patents are being filed in and by the…

Did Alice bring more 102, 103, and 112 rejections?

Like a moth to a flame, this week I was again drawn to the USPTO Office Actions data set. Although, I previously found that coverage…

Do Examiner Interviews Live Up to the Hype?

I have come across many clients and practitioners that take it as gospel that examiner interviews are always good and should be performed whenever possible.…

Prosecution Poker with Examiner and Art Unit Appeal Statistics

In my previous post, I looked at two metrics – allowance rate and actions per disposal – that I find useful in assessing an examiner…

The U.S. is Becoming Continuation Nation

Using USPTO bulk data for patents granted between 1976 and Jan 9, 2018, I extracted each patent’s earliest priority date and then used those dates…

Apple Files a Bonkers Number of PTAB Petitions

In my last post I looked at various metrics for assignees and patent owners of patents challenged at the PTAB. Today I decided to turn the tables…

Will the real parties in interest at the PTAB please stand up?

I recently came across the Lex Machina PTAB report discussing patent owners at the PTAB (they keep it behind a registration link, but you can…