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Not Another AI Patent Article: Data-Driven Prosecution In The Field Of Artificial Intelligence

As noted at the bottom of the page (but worth repeating here): Any views or opinions expressed by me on this blog are solely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of Oracle Corporation, its subsidiaries or affiliates, or those of Chicago-Kent College of Law. The information on this blog is intended to promote discussion--please contact a qualified patent attorney if you need any patent advice. It is presumed that the reader of this article already has a general understanding of artificial intelligence. If not, consider Wikipedia or your search engine of choice. This article is outlined as follows: EXISTING ARTICLES ABOUT AI PROSECUTION STRATEGIES SUMMARY OF DATA-DRIVEN WAYS TO IMPROVE DRAFTING AND PROSECUTING AI-RELATED PATENT APPLICATIONS METHODOLOGY OF FINDING AI CASES HIGH-LEVEL METRICS FOR AI CASES IMPACT OF THE 2019 REVISED PATENT SUBJECT MATTER ELIGIBILITY GUIDANCE LAW FIRM METRICS FOR AI CASES TOP CLAIM LANGUAGE CLUSTERS TOP CLAIM TERMINOLOGY CLAIM LENGTH CO

Unprecedented Allowance Rates at the USPTO?

According to the USPTO, the current allowance rates are around 76% and have been above 70% since May 2017: https://www.uspto.gov/corda/dashboards/patents/kpis/kpiAllowed.kpixml Historically, allowance rates are just below 70%, occasionally spiking up above 70% for a quarter or two. https://patentlyo.com/patent/2016/11/uspto-allowance-rate-2.html Are we in unprecedented territory for the USPTO and the U.S. patent system? Note that, between the Alice decision in 2014 and Dec. 31, 2018, only 36% of patents granted by the USPTO had valid claims after being challenged under Section 101 at the District Courts. The high invalidity rate has been relatively constant during that time.

How high will it go? An update on the allowance rate for applications relating to artificial intelligence at the USPTO

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It has been about a year since my last post on allowance rates for applications relating to artificial intelligence at the USPTO, and it seemed like a good time for an update. In short, the allowance rate is still around 90% for applications relating to artificial intelligence, but, notably, the allowance rate in 2019 actually surpassed 90% for this technology. This may be partially due to the updated guidelines distributed by the USPTO at the beginning of the year, which "aim to improve the clarity, consistency, and predictability of actions across the USPTO." Actions are sent out by examiners to prevent the office from granting patent rights over technologies that were already publicly accessible (described exactly or as an obvious variant) at the time of filing. The USPTO could attain perfect clarity, consistency, and predictability of actions with a 100% allowance rate, but at what cost to the public? METHODOLOGY In the study, to find what I consider "arti