by Dennis Crouch
Over the past decade, the rate at which applicants file a Notice of Appeal (NOA) following a Final Office Action has steadily declined. This chart presents a quarterly snapshot of appeal activity by dividing the count of NOAs filed by the number of final rejections issued in that same period. Unlike a cohort analysis that tracks the fate of individual applications, this approach provides a broad view of how frequently applicants are choosing to challenge examiners' decisions via the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB). To control for distortions, this dataset is limited to published applications, ensuring that the numbers are not skewed by the fact that non-published applications are generally only accessible when a patent issues. During this time, the USPTO has issued lots more final office actions 50% more at the end of calendar year 2024 as compared with 2021-2022. But, although rejections have risen, NOA filings have not.