PATNEWS: More statistics on June patent filing rates
Gregory Aharonian
Yesterday's New York Times had an article about the rush to file patents
before the June 8th deadline. Here are some of the numbers from the article:
Foley & Lardner filed about 500 cases from May 7 to June 8, about
a several hundred percent increase over normal filing rates.
The total number of applications logged in on June 7th (the last
date to get the old coverage) was 5019, more than five times the
PTO's daily average.
"Anne Kelly, director of the Patent Office department that logs
in patent applications, said the number of applications had
increased steadily during the last six months, with an
'exponential' jump in the last week."
Fine Anne, such a statement implies you have some numbers. Share them with
the public, especially as public release of aggregrate filing rates does not
affect in anyway the privacy of any one patent application - it hurts no one
and helps everyone.
But given the unlikeliness of this, as people start getting their June
serial numbers, let me know. I am still predicting that the PTO will receive
an extra three to six months worth of applications. If filing rates return to
normal (as opposed to dropping to less than normal as the PTO is hoping), then
this extra load will cause some delay in processing of applications under the
new 20 year from filing term regime.
Greg Aharonian
Internet Patent News Service
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