by Dennis Crouch
For decades the USPTO has issued patents each and every Tuesday — with data being released typically at 12:01 a.m. Eastern time. Today’s release wraps up 2024 and almost breaks a record with 7,499 utility patents issued — the second most ever in any given week. (The #1 spot is held by 7669 utility patents issued on October 3, 2023). The total UTL patents issued has been rising for the past several years but are still below the 2019 high point at over 350,000.
As you look at the chart above, the 2024 patent count numbers are a bit skewed upward because of a calendaring quirk. While most years have 52 Tuesdays, 2024 has 53 Tuesdays. This extra Tuesday means the USPTO has one additional patent issue day compared to a typical year, which represents roughly a 2% increase in opportunities for patent grants over the calendar year.
The chart above also shows information about the grant rate. The grant rate trend tells an interesting story, rising steadily from around 70% in 2015 to peak at about 80-81% around 2022-2023. This increasing grant rate suggests that patent applications have become more likely to succeed over this period. Here, the grant rate represents the proportion of disposed patent applications that result in issued patents. Specifically, it is calculated by dividing the number of issued patents by the total number of disposed applications, where disposal can occur in one of two ways: either through successful issuance of a patent or through abandonment by the patent applicant. An detail about this calculation is that it only encompasses published patent applications because information is not available for unpublished application abandonment.
This gets pretty nerdy, but I wanted to highlight an interesting trend that I’ve been noticing with the weekly patent grants. The second chart above shows a striking pattern. For most of the past decade, the USPTO appeared to maintain a relatively stable weekly “quota” or target number of issued patents, with that target number shifting gradually over time but remaining fairly consistent week-to-week. This administrative standardization is evident in the data, which shows most weeks clustering around a central trend line, interrupted only by periodic dips – typically occurring once or twice per quarter when the Office issued significantly fewer patents.
However, starting in early 2023, this long-standing pattern of consistency has given way to much greater weekly variability. The data now shows substantial week-to-week fluctuations in patent grants, with no clear baseline or standard number emerging. While the USPTO has not officially commented on this shift, the timing coincides with the Office’s move toward complete digitization of patent grants and increased automation in the issuance process. These process advances may have eliminated the practical need for artificial “caps” on weekly patent grants that were likely necessitated by the physical and administrative constraints of the previous system.