Patent Law

Pulp Non-Fiction

By Gary Odom and Jordan Kuhn

Any competent statistician will tell you that sample size is telling. So why do Andrew S. Baluch and Stephen B. Maebius just look at the first 30 of 308 inter partes reexaminations since late 1999, when the practice began? From the smattering, the two Foley & Lardner attorneys find reexamed claims downed a whopping 73% of the time. 43% of the time, the patent holder didn't even bother to reply. The authors term it "surprising efficacy." A sense of perspective would call it numbers that tell you nothing noteworthy.

Old reexams, literally the first batch, that didn't fare well. Another exercise in rather meaningless patent stats by lawyers with, at best, facile statistical acumen. If they knew better, they would have bothered to provide a more complete, and interesting, picture.

A hat-tip of thanks to Professor Crouch at Patently-O.

Full post as published by The Patent Prospector on August 24, 2008 (boomark / email).