As a seasoned patent professional, it is likely that most of your work falls into a specific technology center, meaning you probably find yourself in front of the same examiners time and again. 

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. 

An ideal patent prosecution is quick, cost-efficient, and ultimately successful. The more office actions an application receives, the longer, more expensive, and less viable an application becomes.

The next big technology shakeup is on its way. With a limited rollout in 2018 leading to a much more comprehensive release in 2020, 5G is here, with increased speeds, instantaneous communication, and the ability to connect just about everything.

We recently identified the ten most difficult examiners currently reviewing applications at the USPTO. Our research prompted the question: “Which firms and companies have prosecuted the most applications in front of these difficult examiners?”

For patent applicants looking to move quickly, the USPTO's Track One program is a seemingly obvious choice. But does the program, which was instituted in 2011, still work? The answer is yes – but not like it used to.

The USPTO recently hosted a webinar about the general approach to interpreting claims and how the specification interacts with and modifies those claims. With the goal of providing answers to common examiner questions, the webinar specifically discussed the importance of the broadest reasonable interpretation (BRI) of each claim, how to handle claim limitations, and the added difficulty of limitations related to 35 USC 112(f) (aka “Means-or-Step-Plus-Function” Limitations). The hope is to create consistent examination guidance that ensures all claims will be interpreted similarly by anyone of ordinary skill in the art. 

It’s common for patent applications to suffer at least one rejection during prosecution. To overcome rejections, patent professionals will often request an interview with the assigned USPTO examiner. But are some examiners more receptive to interviews than others?