More on the patent grant rate saga

I obtained a picture to illustrate the confusion over patent grant rate, but that will have to wait. Two other things:

#1. Of the issue of "when" the OECD paper was published, OECD got back to me on July 7 and said they have no idea when the paper became publicly available or generally when it was published. Imagine if you had prior art like that in a patent litigation! Yeah, I put on the internet, but I don't remember when, and the the wayback machine isn't working too well. And, yes, I might have changed it later.

#2. Utilizing Table 4 of QW3, I was able to back-calculate some interesting numbers.

year=1995

39175 continuations (48% of continuing applications)
15881 cips
26272 divs (32% of continuing applications)

year=2004

73974 continuations (68% of continuing applications)
14962 cips
19413 divs (18% of continuing applications)

year=2005

85094 continuations (71% of continuing applications)
15434 cips
19131 divs (16% of continuing applications)
119,659 total continuing


For past discussion look

here and
here.

I had commented on the USPTO website (from the ill-fated April 2006 submission to Intellectual Property Today):

Endnote 18: [for FY2005] There were 63,000 continuing applications, which included 44,500 cons/cips and 18,500 divisionals. Of these, 11,800 were second, or subsequent, applications. Separately, there were 52,000 RCEs, of which 10,000 were second, or subsequent. Thus, 21,800 applications of 384,228, were second or subsequent, which is 5.7%. As for FY2004, RCEs were the single most abundant “continuing” form, 52,000 of 384,228 [13.5%]. All “continuing” forms combined
constituted 115,000 of 384,228 [30%].

One notes if one combines 63,000 (continuing applications) with 52,000 (RCEs) on gets 115,000, close to 119,659 (derived from QW3). Further, the number for total applications in Endnote 18 (384,228) is the number found in Table 3 of QW3 for total UPR applications for 2005 (384,228). Also, the number of divisionals reported in Endnote 18 for FY2005 (18,500) is close to that inferred from the data of QW3 (19,131). One surmises that QW3 is counting RCEs as continuing applications. In this view, RCEs in 2005 comprised 52/115 = 45% of all continuing applications.

I had separately written in Intellectual Property Today in November 2005 for FY2004 (based on an email from the USPTO):

One notes that the combination of RCEs/R129s/CPAs comprises 14% of the applications, with true continuations under Rule 1.53 amounting to 8%. Divisionals comprise 5% and continuations-in-part 4% of the applications. The single most predominant
form, a continued examination of an application, comprises 45% (14/31) of these examples of “re-work.”