Harrity Referenced in Bloomberg Article: Diversity Woes in Patent Field Lead Lawyers to Try New Ideas

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Diversity Woes in Patent Field Lead Lawyers to Try New Ideas

Harrity & Harrity, LLP’s research and innovative diversity initiatives are featured in a recent Bloomberg article on diversity in the patent field.

The article references research found in Elaine Spector and LaTia Brand‘s “Diversity in Patent Law: A Data Analysis of Diversity in the Patent Practice by Technology Background and Region” piece for ABA’s Landslide Magazine, including the following excerpt:

More ‘Michaels’ Than Racially Diverse Women

Fewer than 22% of patent attorneys and agents registered with the Patent and Trademark Office are women, a 2020 study led by the Virginia patent law firm Harrity & Harrity LLP found. Patent agents aren’t attorneys but can work on inventors’ patent applications.

The average number of PTO registrants who are racial minorities has been around 6.5% over the past two decades, according to the study.

“Among racially diverse women, the numbers are significantly worse,” the authors wrote in a September 2020 article for Landslide, a magazine published by the ABA’s Section of Intellectual Property Law.

“In fact, there are more patent attorneys and agents named ‘Michael’ in the United States than there are racially diverse women,” the authors wrote.

Managing Partner Paul Harrity is also quoted in the Bloomberg article, specifically with regard to Harrity’s upcoming Patent Pathways program.

“The Harrity & Harrity law firm has plans for a ‘Patent Pathways’ program this summer. It’s a free, 42-week virtual course, with the aim to register 20 underrepresented minorities with the patent bar in the first year.

The program will target engineering and science students, or individuals in those fields looking to change careers. Paul Harrity, a founding partner at the firm, said they’re looking to connect with candidates with presentations at universities and through groups like the National Society of Black Engineers.

Harrity said he stumbled into the patent field after seeing a job advertisement for a patent examiner position at the PTO. It’s not an uncommon experience.

‘A lot of people have the same story—somebody just mentioned it to them,’ Harrity said. ‘We want to be the people to mention it.'”

You can find the full article by Bloomberg Law HERE.

About Harrity & Harrity, LLP

Harrity & Harrity is a leading patent preparation and prosecution firm specializing in the electrical and mechanical technology areas, with a focus on giving back through its Harrity 4 Charity program and many diversity initiatives. Harrity is considered a Go-To Firm for the Patent 300™ and their clients trust in their high-quality work, experienced people, industry leading innovation, and outstanding service.

For more information on Harrity’s analytics, automation, and patent services, firm culture, and current openings, please visit harrityllp.com.

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Track One Filings on Faster Track?

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Are Track One Filings on a Faster Track?

By Neil Kardos, Partner

Does filing a Track One prioritized examination request increase the chances of getting a patent? I discussed this idea in a recent Practical Patents video, and below is a chart of the data broken down by USPTO technology center.

Track One applications have a higher allowance rate compared to non-Track One applications across all technology centers, ranging from a 7% boost to a 21% boost.

The boost from Track One is particularly significant (16%-21%) in technology areas with lower allowance rates, like chemical, biotech, and business methods.

Of course, correlation is not causation. Does filing a Track One request boost the chances of getting a patent, or are patent applications that already have a higher chance of success being filed with Track One requests?

My guess: it’s a bit of both.

What do you think?

Learn more about our patent analytics capabilities by visiting the Harrity Analytics site HERE.

Harrity Named Juristat Top Patent Firm for Third Year

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Harrity & Harrity has been named a Top Patent Firm by Juristat for a third consecutive year. Harrity is one of 66 firms to top the list consecutively.

The list, backed by a database of more than 10 million pending, abandoned, and granted patent applications, objectively analyzes the performance of every law firm practicing within the USPTO to establish the rankings.

Harrity came in at for Technology Center 2400, #9 in Technology Center 2600, and #13 in Technology Center 3600.

To learn more about our patent services, visit harrityllp.com.

Using Examiner Analytics for Prosecution

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A Look at Examiner Analytics

By Paul Harrity, Managing Partner

If you had a patent application with a particular Examiner and these were the only statistics that you had regarding the Examiner, what could you tell about this Examiner?

I can tell a number of things about this Examiner from these statistics. Here are some of the things I would know about this Examiner:

 
1. The Examiner is a more senior patent examiner with about 10 or 11 years of experience (assuming that the 40 patents that the Examiner issued last year is their average).
 
2. The Examiner allows a lot more applications than the Examiner abandons (i.e., the Examiner issued 40 patents last year compared to 2 abandonments). So, this seems like someone who I can work with to get to an allowance.
 
3. The Examiner allows more applications than the average patent examiner in the Examiner’s art unit (i.e., the Examiner’s 95% allowance rate is higher than the art unit average of 90%). Further, the Examiner has issued more than half of the patents issued by the entire art unit so far this year (i.e., the Examiner issued 18 patents YTD, compared to the 33 patents issued by the entire art unit). This is further evidence that this is someone who I can work with to get to an allowance.
 
4. The Examiner’s allowance rate of 95% for the entire prior year implies that this is a patent examiner who might be willing to work with applicants to move an application towards allowance.
 
What else do you see?
 
You can get FREE examiner analytics today – right now. Go to www.patentprufer.com and sign up today.

Learn more about our patent analytics capabilities by visiting the Harrity Analytics site HERE.

Clause 8 Season 3, Episode 1: Professor Dan Brown and Dan Brown Jr.’s Patent Battle Against a Retail Giant

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Eli Mazour‘s Clause 8 Podcast, The Voice of IP, has returned for Season 3, featuring all new exclusive interviews with the intellectual property community’s biggest names.

LISTEN TO EPISODE 1 HERE!

 

 

 

 

Professor Dan Brown and his son, Dan Brown Jr., are straight out of central casting.  Prof. Brown, the father, grew up in a working-class Irish family on Chicago’s South Side before eventually becoming a professor of engineering at Northwestern University. Dan Jr. is a moppy-haired marketing genius who is now President of LoggerHead Tools.

As a result of a father-son argument, Prof. Brown invented an award-winning tool called the Bionic Wrench and pursued the audacious idea of manufacturing it in entirely in America. Sears positioned itself to become their exclusive retailer when the initial order of 300,000 units sold out between Black Friday and Christmas. Unfortunately, not long after, Sears started pressuring them to manufacture it in China to lower the price of the bionic wrench.

“It was pure greed. And we said no,” Prof. Brown said.

When Prof. Brown refused, Sears got another company, Apex, to make a knockoff of the bionic wrench in China. So, LoggerHead Tools, represented by Skiermont Derby, took them to court. They were on their way to being vindicated when the death of the original federal judge, assigned to the case, put that into doubt.

Today, they continue to tell the story of their “David and Goliath” battle in hopes that the patent law can be improved to support America’s innovators.

 

You can subscribe and listen to the full episode on your favorite podcasting app and learn more at voiceofIP.com. New episodes will drop every Tuesday!

 

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Top Medical Device Companies in 2021 US Patents

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Top Medical Device Companies in 2021 US Patents

By Rocky Berndsen, Head of Harrity Analytics

Medical devices are a $432 billion dollar global industry and here are the top 20 companies patenting in the US. Overall, these companies obtained 8% fewer patents in 2021 compared to 2020. Most of these companies are filing first in the US, with Philips as an exception.

Over 40% of the patents issued are continuations, Considering that the average number of continuations in 2021 was 23%, this shows the strategic continuation patenting in the medical device space.

Of note is the variability in the average office actions per patent and RCEs per patent statistics in the medical device space. The highest office actions per patent is 2.4 and the lowest is 1.3. The highest RCEs per patent is 0.8 and the lowest is 0.3.

Kudos to Johnson & Johnson, Medtronic, Philips, Boston Scientific, Stryker, Abbott, BD, SHIMADZU CORPORATION, Intuitive, and Baxter International Inc. for making the top 10!

Learn more about our patent analytics capabilities by visiting the Harrity Analytics site HERE.

Harrity Names Ryan Thelen as Newest Partner

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Congratulations to Harrity’s newest Partner, Ryan Thelen!

(WASHINGTON, DC)  Harrity & Harrity, LLP, a leading patent law firm based in Fairfax, VA, is pleased to announce the promotion of Ryan Thelen to the position of Partner with the firm. Harrity & Harrity operates nationwide, with 37 total patent attorneys and agents across 26 states. Ryan is Harrity’s 8th Partner and first promotion of 2022.

Ryan has been with Harrity since 2018. His practice focuses on the preparation and prosecution of patent applications in various fields, such as telecommunications, networking, software, semiconductors, cloud computing, automation, data analytics, and security. He has been instrumental in landing, onboarding, and managing one of the firm’s largest clients and is regularly involved in firm innovation and best practice implementation. Ryan is an active member of the Intellectual Property Owners Association (IPO) and PTAB Bar Association.

“It is an honor to be a part of the leadership of such an amazing firm with such a bright future. I could tell right away when I first joined Harrity that this firm was going to be very different from other firms because how amazing the support staff is and the level of training that was provided. Everyone here really cares about the success of others and the firm as a whole. I am really grateful to be given the opportunity to pay it forward and to help the firm continue to grow,” said Ryan of his new position.

Prior to joining Harrity & Harrity, Ryan practiced in-house at Panduit Corp. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. While in-house, Ryan gained extensive experience in patent portfolio management, product clearance, invention disclosure mining, infringement analysis, and post-grant proceedings before the Patent Trial & Appeal Board. Prior to his work in-house, Ryan worked at Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow, Garrett, & Dunner as well as Arent Fox while attending law school in the evenings.

Ryan received his Juris Doctor with honors from The George Washington University Law School (2016) and earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Kettering University (2008).  Prior to starting his legal career, Ryan was a project engineer for United Technologies in the UTC Aerospace Systems business unit, where he led teams of engineers in the development of commercial and military aircraft engines.

Ryan works remotely out of Flushing, MI, where he lives with his wife and three young daughters.

 

About Harrity & Harrity, LLP

Harrity & Harrity is a leading patent preparation and prosecution firm specializing in the electrical and mechanical technology areas, with a focus on giving back through its Harrity 4 Charity program and many diversity initiatives. Harrity is considered a Go-To Firm for the Patent 300™ and their clients trust in their high-quality work, experienced people, industry leading innovation, and outstanding service.

For more information on Harrity’s analytics, automation, and patent services, firm culture, and current openings, please visit harrityllp.com.

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Business Methods Patents Are Alive & Well!

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By Rocky Berndsen, Head of Harrity Patent Analytics

Business Method patents are alive and well! Here is a list of the top 25 companies that obtained patents in 2021 in the business method art units at the USPTO.

Surprisingly, this is one of the few areas where we see year over year growth in patenting. This increase in patenting may be due to the sea change that we’ve seen in how the USPTO has handled the prosecution of business method patents.

There is some interesting variation in the patent prosecution metrics for companies obtaining patents in this space. This list is a who’s who of high-technology and fin-tech companies.

I’m surprised to see that significant percentage of patents in this space that are con/div.

What do you think? Find me on Linkedin and let me know your thoughts!

Want to see more interesting patent analytics? Check out our newest Patent 300® list here!

 

About Harrity Patent Analytics

Harrity Patent Analytics, an analytical team within the boutique IP law firm of Harrity & Harrity, LLP, uses cutting-edge capabilities to analyze patent data and extract insights for clients to use when making strategic decisions regarding patent portfolios. Patent 300® companies rely on Harrity Patent Analytics services to understand their patent portfolios, the patent portfolios of their competitors, and patent office trends around the world. For more information, visit harrityllp.com/services/patent-analytics/.

 

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