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Legal Research

: The Patent Librarian's Notebook

U.S. Patent Counts, July-Sept. 2007

By Michael White

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Quarterly Patent and PGPub Counts

Q1 || 47,332 | 74,277 | 121,609
Q2 || 45,828 | 76,640 | 122,468
Q3 || 44,567 | 75,831 | 120,398
Q4 ||

The third quarter of 2007 was relatively unremarkable with both patents (utility, design reissue and plant) and published applications experiencing a slight decline from the previous quarter. Published applications were down one percent to 75,831 but up a percentage point over the same quarter last year. Patents dropped 2.75 percent to 44,567, which was a decline of 11 percent from Q3 in 2006. Patents averaged about 3,500 per week, virtually unchanged from Q2, with only two weeks below the 3,000 mark. Published applications averaged 5,833 per week, hitting a high for the quarter of 6,595 on August 14. At this rate, the USPTO is on track to break 300,000 for the total number of published applications in a year. Since 2001, the USPTO has published approximately 1.5 million utility and plant patent applications.

In related news, GlaxoSmith filed a last-minute suite in federal court to prevent the USPTO from implementing its new patent rules which, among other things, limit the number of continuation applications an applicant may file. The USPTO hopes the new rules will reduce the number of applications.

Full post as published by The Patent Librarian's Notebook on November 04, 2007 (boomark / email).