In the post-Alice era, allowances in the 3620s, 3680s, and 3690s e-commerce art units are an increasingly rare sight. The decision has wreaked havoc on the way the courts and patent examiners interpret software and business methods claims, making its application unpredictable and inconsistent. Many commentators allege that the decision is being applied overzealously by many examiners, resulting in almost every application in the e-commerce art units receiving an Alice rejection, which in many cases can be a death warrant.
Since Alice was decided in June of 2014, the percentage of applications receiving § 101 rejections in the e-commerce art units jumped dramatically from about 30% before Alice to over 80% shortly after Alice, with several examiners citing Alice in 100% of their rejections. Despite this arguably harsh application of the decision, business methods patents are still being issued, albeit quite a bit more infrequently than in the past. With careful strategic planning and an expert understanding of the intricacies of the case, skilled patent attorneys are still able to obtain business methods patents for their clients.

For some, Valentine’s Day is synonymous with roses, chocolates, and heartfelt gestures. But IP professionals know that true romance is found at the intersection of love and patents. 

by Drew Winship and James Cosgrove

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:

Air travel is one of the building blocks of our economy--the ability to get where we need to go quickly, safely, and efficiently, at least in theory. While flying the friendly skies evokes images of the glory days of traveling in style for many, the reality these days is one of long lines, frequent delays, and color-coded terror alert levels. Still, though, flying is essential to our modern way of life, and we trust the engineers at a handful of companies to build our airplanes for us. 

For our next patent matchup, we're going to be taking a look at two of the most advanced aviation engineering companies in the world: Boeing and Lockheed Martin.

The pharmaceutical industry has, of late, been especially prominent in the public eye. This may be partly explained by the Martin Shkreli incident, in which a Big Pharma CEO raised the price of a vital HIV medication by more than 5,000%, from $13.50 a pill to $750 a pill. Since this high-profile scandal broke, the American public has been deep in conversation about the ethics of the industry. For our next great patent battle matchup, we're going to be taking a look at two giants of an industry--Merck and Pfizer.

As part of our ongoing project to pit major companies against each other to see who comes out on top in patent prosecution, we are now taking a turn to the great American automotive industry. The two companies in our ring this week are two giants of the field, and two of the most iconic American companies in existence--Ford and General Motors (GM). As a car-obsessed culture, the products these companies produce are etched into our national psyche and have even become part of our national identity. For Ford, classics such as the Thunderbird, Mustang, and Falcon come to mind. In GM's case, we have the Chevrolet Bel-Air, Cadillac Escalade, and Pontiac GTO. These vehicles evoke images of American individualism, the open road, and endless possibility.
While these products conjure up strong emotions for many, the companies that produce them are more concerned with making money. The best way for them to do this is to protect their innovations through intellectual property laws, thus encouraging the competition to pursue their own innovations and giving American consumers a wide variety of innovative, high-quality automobiles to choose from. It is this struggle that has kept Ford and GM on their toes throughout the decades. However, which comes out on top in obtaining patent protection for their products? Using Juristat's Marketing Reports, we compared a few key metrics of effectiveness in patent prosecution. Below are some graphs illustrating our findings.

Battles between tech companies are some of the most complex and high-stakes litigation in patent law. Apple’s recent infringement suit against Samsung spanned several years, multiple continents, and involved tens of millions of dollars in damages. In addition to battling it out in the courtroom, tech companies are also waging a war for the loyalty of consumers, as the products these companies produce become ever more essential parts of our daily lives. In this consumer-driven atmosphere, the two tech companies that provoke some of the most heated debates over which is more innovative are Apple and Google, whose devices, apps, and operating systems inspire intense loyalty among their users.

New Year.  New Features.
Juristat is proud to announce new features for 2016.  These new features offer an unprecedented level of integration with your existing software and customization of search results.

TC 2400 handles applications touching on computer networks, multiplex communication, video distribution, and cybersecurity. Its overall allowance rate is 62%, making it quite a bit lower than the USPTO average of 71%. In terms of average speed to disposition, it takes an average of 43.8 months to prosecute an application to disposition, making it the slowest technology center in the USPTO. Below are the top 10 fastest firms in TC 2400. All firms were selected from IP Today's top firms for 2015 and have at least 100 disposed applications in the technology center. The firms are ranked by the average number of months between an application's filing date and the date it is either allowed or abandoned.