Legal Research

U.S. Patent Counts, Q3 2008

The USPTO published 72,421 patent applications (A docs) in Q3, a 3 percent decrease over the same quarter last year and a 6.78 percent drop from the previous quarter. On October 2, the USPTO published a record-breaking 8,955 patent applications. If these had been counted in Q3, the total would have been a hefty 81,376. The USPTO is on track to publish over 310,000 applications this year. Approximately 1.87 million plant and utilty patent applications have been published since 2001.

The number of issued patents (B docs) in Q3 dropped to 40,869, a 17 percent drop from the previous quarter and a 6 percent decline from the same quarter last year. This was the lowest total in almost three years. Weekly issues remained flat for most of the quarter, dropping precipitously in the second half of September. The USPTO's campaign to hold the line on low quality patents appears to be having an impact on output.

Table 1. Quaterly Patent and PGPub Counts*

Qn ..... Patents .....PGPubs ..... Total
Q1 ..... 43,657 ..... 77,962 ..... 121,619
Q2 ..... 49,353 ..... 77,691 ..... 127,044
Q3 ..... 40,869 ..... 72,421 ..... 113,290
Q4

*Based on preliminary weekly data from the USPTO website. Totals may change after the fact due to withdrawn patents and published applications.

Table 2. Weekly Averages and Medians (Q3)

Patents ..... 3,166 ..... 3,451
PGPubs ..... 6,161 ..... 6,315

Table 3. Number Ranges for 2008 (Totals)

Patents ..... 7,313,829 - 7,430,762 (116,331)
Reissues ..... RE39,964 - RE40,562 (561)
PGPubs ..... 2008/0000001 - 2008/0235840 (235,743)
Designs ..... D558,426 - D577,875 (19,424)
Plants ..... PP18,373 - PP19,278 (906)
SIRs ..... H2,208 - H2,223 (16)

Full post as published by The Patent Librarian's Notebook on October 02, 2008 (boomark / email).