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:

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.

TC 2100 handles computer-related applications, including applications touching on data processing, memory, information security, and artificial intelligence. Its overall allowance rate is 66.2%, which is slightly below the USPTO average of 71.3%. In terms of average speed to disposition, it takes an average of 40.6 months to prosecute an application in TC 2100, which is slightly slower than the USPTO average of 35.8 months. Below are the top 10 firms based on allowance rate in TC 2100. All firms were selected from IP Today's top firms for 2015 and have at least 100 disposed applications in the technology center.

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

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.