Patent Law

Down with the Docket

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

With its natural panache of rip and snort for the court, the Statistics Division for the Administrative Office of U.S. Courts released its annual report: "Judicial Business of the United States Courts." Using the hoary Roma system, the latest stats run in a calendar year skewed to September 2007. 2,896 patent complaints in 2007, up a 2.3% bit from 2006 (2,830), with 250 filed in the Eastern District of Texas. 2004 was the bumper crop, at 3,075. 408 patent suits celebrated 3 years on the docket in 2007, up from 353 in 2006. 34 USPTO BPAI decisions pending appeal before the CAFC, down from 51 the previous year. The reversal rates on appeal ran less than 20% in 2007, both from district court and BPAI, quite a dip from earlier times.

The panache and Roma bits were, of course, literary license to moisten the otherwise desert dry.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on September 02, 2008 (boomark / email).