by Dennis Crouch
Daedalus's labyrinth was so complex that even its creator needed Ariadne's thread to find his way out. I would suggest that the pathways through USPTO patent prosecution are at least as intricate and manifold. While prosecution statistics reveal some common routes through the maze—each application charts its own course through a complex network of non-final rejections, final rejections, RCEs, and after-final practice. Even experienced practitioners sometimes need their own version of Ariadne's thread.
I wanted to identify the most "typical" pathways for recently issued patents and so parsed through USPTO file wrapper data looking for rejection-response cycles as applications navigate their way to issuance. This post examines the most common prosecution pathways, accounting for 95% of issued patents. My sample here: The two million issued patents granted from applications filed 2016-2020. A separate post will bring-in patent families that continue to be an integral aspect of patent strategy and USPTO timelines.
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