I have some bad news for the wine lovers among us: It's apparently quite difficult to get a patent in CPC Class C12G - Wine; Other Alcoholic Beverages; Preparation Thereof. Let's hope this doesn't stifle important innovation. The news is equally bad for food lovers. If you fall into those categories, you're in for a treat...or not, apparently. 

Without much explanation, USPTO Director Michelle Lee resigned on Tuesday after months of speculation regarding the stability of her position. This comes after Lee previously suggested her time was up in January. There is much speculation that Director Lee is being considered for other roles. Politico writes: "No reason was given for her resignation. While rumors had circulated that Lee was being considered for some other Trump administration post, perhaps as director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Commerce Department didn't announce a next step for her."

Back in January, we released our official ranking of the Top 100 Patent Firms. The Juristat Top 100 is the only ranking of U.S. patent prosecution firms based on objective measurements of firm performance. While the official list excluded foreign priority applications, we received a number of requests asking to see how the rankings would change if those applications were included. Today, we're excited to publish that list. 

As you may know, we regularly publish rankings of the top patent prosecution firms. Even though our rankings are based on multiple variables, we always have a few commentators who point out that certain technologies are just harder to prosecute. This, of course, is true. It’s easier to get a plant patent than a business method patent. That’s why we decided to run the numbers for the various art unit groups at the USPTO.

Our Patent Examiner Reports give attorneys, agents, and in-house teams nearly limitless advantages over the competition. Every time you open an Examiner Report, our system performs over a billion calculations to return the most up-to-date information. As of this writing,

Juristat’s database covers approximately 9,000 active examiners in almost 900 art units. Not only that, we have data on nearly 8 million patent applications.

In this series of posts, we will go step-by-step through an Examiner Report and demonstrate just how useful Juristat can be.

Introduction

If you’re reading this, you’re already familiar with Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank or you’re my mother. Either way, it’s unnecessary to recite all the details of the case or the subsequent aftermath. Suffice it to say that Alice created some serious doubts about the patentability of software claims, particularly as they relate to business methods.

Integration will let users access examiner statistics from within their favorite management software

Tackling the Application Backlog
When David Kappos took over as Director of the USPTO in August 2009, he was greeted by an overwhelming backlog of patent applications. By the following month, Mr. Kappos proposed changes to address the growing problem. These changes were directed at the USPTO’s docket management and examiner count systems. As a refresher, the examiner count system is one of the USPTO’s methods for influencing examiner productivity. As John Penny and Joshua Rudawitz of Nutter put it:

Juristat is proud to announce the release of some exciting new features that will help law firms compare performance and attract new business. Here’s a breakdown of what to expect: