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Showing posts from May, 2019

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.