One of the most commonly-cited disadvantages to choosing an appeal as a post-final rejection strategy is that, in addition to being expensive, they are also quite slow. For applications in which there was a final PTAB decision on the merits from January 1, 2011 to December 31, 2015, the average length of time between the filing of a notice of appeal and a PTAB decision was 33.4 months. Compare this to an average of 6.7 months for applications where the applicant’s appeal was either intervened or resolved by a pre-appeal brief conference. Even though any appeal that makes it all the way to a PTAB decision is going to take longer than most other applications, there are several firms that manage to beat the USPTO average.
Below are the top ten firms that obtain PTAB decisions in the shortest amount of time.
Because responding to a final rejection with an appeal is likely to take more time to resolve (and cost more money) than other strategies, any attorney going this route should know what they’re getting themselves into before they even file their notice of appeal. That’s where Juristat Examiner Reports can help—by letting prosecutors know what they are getting themselves into right from the start, as well as guiding them through prosecution with data-backed insights. To see how big data could revolutionize your patent practice, give Juristat a try (for free!) today.
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