Stylized Facts of U.S. Patenting – Issue Rates, Entry Pendency, Characteristics of Office Actions, Examiner Citations and Child Continuations across Technology Centres and Geographies

Abstract

We examined ten years (1st January 2008 until 31st December 2017) of the regular non-provisional utility applications data (~3.63 million applications) from three different United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) sources - Patent Examination Data System (PEDS), Patents-view database and Office Action Research data set, to present stylized facts of the US patenting process. We analysed cross sectional and temporal variation in the patent issue rates, entry pend-ency, office actions (percentage disposal and entry pend-ency conditional on the nth office action instant, type of rejections, proportion of citations in different types of rejections), child continuation behavior and citations by applicants and examiners in the granted applications. This analysis was performed across progenitor and continuation applications, both at first action disposals or post office actions and across eight technology centers and seven geographic locations (North America, Western Europe, Japan, Korea (South), Taiwan, China and India). The patent issue rate differed substantially between technology centers and geographic locations based on the type of patent application and its nature of disposal i.e. at the first action or post office actions. The patent issue rate were higher and the entry pend-ency lower for the continuation applications, than that for the progenitor applications. Continuation applications were more likely ~ 28% against ~ 19% of the progenitor applications to exhibit child continuity – a possible strategic use of continuations. Examiners provided more US citations than foreign citations; thus, an exhaustive US prior art study could be of value to the applicants. Emerging markets showed an increasing trend in the number of patent applications filed with USPTO - from 2008 to 2017, China and India showed a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of ~ 15% and ~ 10% in the number of patent applications filed, respectively.