Halloween, or All Hallows’ Eve, is a time for trick-or-treating, bobbing for apples, and costume parties. However, it is easy to get caught up in all the revelry and forget that, hidden amongst the trick-or-treaters, may be some less than savory characters. To avoid being caught off guard by a vampire, witch, or werewolf read further to find eight patents to help you survive Halloween night.

When measuring the overall success and efficiency of a law firm’s patent prosecution practice, there are several metrics available, including overall allowance rate, time to disposition, and average number of office actions. Allowance rate is one of the most common metrics, but allowance rate merely tells us how many applications received NOAs, and nothing of the quality of those applications. Besides merely getting an application allowed, clients are also concerned about the quality and scope of their claims. One way to determine this is by measuring how well a law firm preserves claims through prosecution.
Below is a ranking of the top 10 firms that lose the fewest dependent claims in prosecution among IP Today’s top patent firms for 2015. All firms have at least 100 disposed applications. We measured claim preservation by determining a law firm’s average number of dependent claims per application at publication and comparing this to the firm’s average number of claims per application at allowance.

Technology Center 3600 is somewhat of a catch-all tech center, with applicable technologies ranging from animal husbandry to furniture to robotics systems. The 3600s are also home to the business methods art units, which have been the subject of a great deal of interest and critical analysis following Alice v. CLS Bank Int’l., 573 U.S. ___(2014). Its average allowance rate is 61.1%, which is lower than the USPTO average of 71%.
Below is a ranking of the top 10 speediest firms by time to disposition in TC 3600. The firms were selected from IP Today’s top firms for 2015 and all have at least 250 disposed applications in the tech center. Time to disposition was measured by the average number of months between an application’s filing date and the date it was either patented or abandoned.

Technology Center 1600 covers a variety of biotech, chemical, and pharmaceutical technologies, as well as plants and cosmetics. Its overall allowance rate is 51%, which is significantly lower than the USPTO's average of 71%. In terms of speed to disposition, it takes an average of 36.1 months to prosecute an application to disposition in TC 1600, which is nearly equal to the USPTO average of 35.8 months.
Below is a ranking of the top 10 firms by allowance rate among IP Today's top patent firms.*

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:

Latest release will help firms compare performance and attract new clients

ST. LOUIS, MO – September 1, 2015 – Juristat, the legal technology company known for its industry-leading Patent Examiner Reports, today announced the release of a new suite of products that will help law firms compare performance and attract new business.

Introduction

Obtaining a utility patent is not always an easy task. In order to do so, an inventor, normally assisted by a patent attorney, must demonstrate to the USPTO that a particular invention is worthy of a patent.

The USPTO evaluates worthiness using a strict set of patentability requirements aimed at ensuring that granted patents encourage innovation and productivity.

The five major patentability requirements are (1) subject matter, (2) utility, (3) novelty, (4) non-obviousness, and (5) the writing requirements. We will address of each of these criteria in turn.

We are constantly thinking about all the factors that affect a patent application. We’ve even analyzed gender bias at the USPTO (check back soon for those results). Every detail matters, perhaps even the length of an application’s title. That’s why we decided to test the following hypothesis: a longer application title results in a longer wait until first exam.