If you find yourself in front of an examiner with a high allowance rate, first, breathe a sigh of relief. Then, consider the next steps in your prosecution strategy. 

When it comes to patent prosecution, knowing your examiner’s allowance rate can give you a great insight into the road that lies ahead. 

When faced with prosecution in front of the USPTO’s most difficult examiners, these firms excelled and came away with an allowance.

Patent attorneys run into the same examiners from time to time, but what happens when that particular examiner happens to be one of the most difficult at the USPTO?

Patent professionals who specialize in a specific type of technology may run into the same examiners from time to time. If that examiner is one of the most difficult in the technology center, knowledge of past performance may be the difference between an allowance and an abandonment.

We continue our annual tradition of identifying the 10 USPTO examiners with the most skeptical eye toward the patent applications that cross their desks.

In an update to our 2016, 2017, and 2018 lists of most difficult examiners at the USPTO, we have identified the 10 patent examiners (excluding SPEs) with the most skeptical eye toward the patent applications that cross their desks.

Knowing an examiner’s allowance rate is one of the best indicators of how difficult a patent prosecution will be. 

In July of 2016, we published an article titled “The Most Difficult Examiners at the USPTO,” in which we identified the top 10 patent examiners across all art units whose allowance rates were the lowest. For most patent prosecutors, their examiner’s allowance rate is the clearest indicator of the overall difficulty of prosecuting a patent with that examiner, since a low allowance rate means that there likely will be more office actions, claim scope will be harder to retain, and the prosecution timeline will be longer. Thus, it is helpful for a patent prosecutor to know what his or her examiner’s allowance rate is right from the start of the prosecution in order to plan and advise clients accordingly.

For most patent prosecutors, getting to an allowance is usually the one overarching concern of every prosecution. Of course, prosecutors are also concerned about preserving as much of their claim language as possible to get the broadest protection for their clients. But a patent is better than no patent at all, and, for most, an allowance is a win. Thus, a particular examiner’s allowance rate is a critical measurement of the difficultly of patent prosecution in front of that examiner.