Business Methods by the Numbers: A Look Inside PTO Class 705
What these numbers tell you is if your application is in Art Unit 3622 or 3689 you are in for a long wait to obtain a patent. The numbers also show that if you carry the case all the way through appeal...
View ArticleExamining the Appealed Patent Allowances from Art Unit 3689
The data clearly suggests that that inquiry should be made into what is going on in Art Unit 3689. If there is nothing odd after evaluation then I will be the first to report that and say that after...
View ArticleExclusive Interview: Commissioner Focarino — Part 3
In this final installment of my interview with Peggy Focarino, Commissioner for Patents, we discuss the examiner count system, production and Art Units and Patent Examiners that do not issue patents....
View ArticleIs there a Systematic Denial of Due Process at the USPTO?
After my presentation, as you might expect, I was approached by a number of patent attorneys. Story after story it was the same thing I have heard from so many others — depressing tales of not being...
View ArticleAllowance Rates for Art Units Examining Business Methods
If I were a patent examiner that hadn't issued patents for years I wouldn't want anyone to know that either. Similarly, if I were a Supervisory Patent Examiner (SPE) in an Art Unit that routinely only...
View ArticleThese Are the 20 Hardest and Easiest Art Units
Art Unit 3689 has the lowest allowance rate at 7.7%. Art Unit 3659 has the highest at 98.3%. Oddly enough, these two art units are from the same technology center. It’s worth noting, however, that the...
View ArticleWhat the Patent Office Refuses to Understand
This new post-prosecution pilot program feels a lot like rearranging the chairs on the Titanic. Unless and until the Patent Office does something about recalcitrant patent examiners this effort may...
View ArticleE-Commerce Art Units: Where Patent Applications Go to Die
Upon closer review things are much, much worse than I previously reported. The problem is also far more widespread. Using LexisNexis Patent Advisor®, I looked at the E-commerce Art Units, this time...
View ArticleThe Impotence of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board
What is happening in TC 3600 is prosecution is being re-opened for the purpose of issuing Alice rejections. With the help of readers, so far I’ve found eleven (11) separate cases over the last 10...
View ArticleAre patent examiners instructed to issue frivolous rejections?
So an applicant waits years on appeal to get relief from frivolous rejections, achieves a complete and total victory, and their reward is another bogus rejection from the same examiner who has been...
View ArticleIs there a Tide-Change in the Prospects of Patenting Business Method...
In the years after the Alice decision, it had seemed as though examiners in the business method art units felt as though their hands were tied with respect to issuing applications. Even if they had...
View Article