As we continue to investigate major rivalries in the patent law world, we now turn our attention away from market-based competition and onto academic competition. This is a type of rivalry that, while generally good-natured, can get quite heated as various schools battle it out in academic rankings, job placement statistics, and on the field. When it comes to academic rivalries in the sector, there is perhaps none more fierce than the one between the two preeminent schools of technology in the United States--MIT and Caltech. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was founded in Cambridge in 1861 to educate students in applied science and engineering in the rapidly-industrializing United States. Widely considered to be among the top technology schools in the world, MIT ranks #7 overall among national universities in the United States according to U.S. News, and #1 for several of its undergraduate and graduate programs, including engineering, chemistry, and mathematics. The school has produced 85 Nobel laureates, 45 Rhodes Scholars, and 34 astronauts.

Juristat is proud to release its ranking of the Top 100 U.S. Patent Firms.  This is the only ranking of U.S. patent prosecution firms that is based on the objective measurement of those firms' performance in front of the United States Patent and Trademark Office.

Note: This list is from 2016. Click here to see the latest rankings. 

By now, it's pretty clear that we at Juristat love competitions, lists, and ranking things in general.  Because of our penchant for pitting patent-filing companies and firms against each other, we've been hard at work on our biggest ranking yet - the overall Top 100 Patent Law Firms.  This list is the only ranking of U.S. law firms based on those firms' objective performance in front of the USPTO. Due to our barely contained excitement, we've decided to give our blog readers a special sneak peak at the firms rounding out the Juristat Top Twenty! Congratulations to all the top twenty firms!

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.