A Look at Patent 300® Companies’ Office Actions Per Patent
HARRITY PATENT ANALYTICS: A LOOK AT PATENT 300® COMPANIES’ OFFICE ACTIONS PER PATENT
By Rocky Berndsen, Head of Harrity Analytics
One of the stats I find most interesting in the patent field is the office action per patent statistic. There can be so many reasons why this statistic could vary so greatly from company to company. Here are a few of my ideas on the factors that go into it.
1. Filing strategy / Claim breadth – some filers will fight tooth and nail for every claim, whereas, other filers are just trying to get to allowance as quickly as possible.
2. Technology area – some technology areas may be more difficult to get patents in for a number of reasons (e.g., quality prior art, large numbers of filings, patentability issues).
3. Prosecution quality – the quality of prosecution quality varies from firm to firm, and even from attorney to attorney.
4. Foreign priority – apps with foreign priority tend to have fewer office actions per patent and typically will have fewer claims.
5. Budget/Cost consideration – prosecution strategy may be impacted by budget and therefore applications that reach higher numbers of office actions or RCEs may be abandoned.
6. Continuation strategy – continuation filings will tend to have fewer office actions than original priority filings.
Below, you can see the Patent 300® Companies with the highest and lowest office actions per patent.
I’d love to hear if you have any additional thoughts on the factors that go into these OA statistics.
The official 2022 ranking of the top 300 companies, organizations and universities can be found here. You can find more information regarding prosecution statistics in the interactive Patent 300® Dashboard 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/.