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Dashboard: Prosecution Strategy

Sarah Garber avatar
Written by Sarah Garber
Updated over 2 weeks ago

This dashboard quickly identifies applications meeting the criteria for interview, appeal, or continuation opportunities as well as applications that have gone through extended prosecution or are in front of very low allowance rate examiners. Applications included in this dashboard are required to be pending, non-provisional, and in front of examiners with at least 10 disposed applications.

Filters

The Prosecution Strategy dashboard is filterable using the standard Juristat set of filters. Users can filter the dashboard to applications that are in a certain class or tech center, have a specific assignee or firm, and more.

Interview Opportunities

An interview opportunity is defined as a pending application:

  • with at least a user-set number of office actions,

  • no interviews,

  • where the examiner’s interview win rate is at least a user-set number of percentage points higher than the examiner’s RCE win rate.

Interview Opportunity Settings

The interview settings allow the user to define the minimum number of office actions and the minimum percentage point difference between an examiner's interview and RCE win rates for an application to be included as an interview opportunity.

Interview Opportunities Metrics

  • Total Interview Opportunities: The total number of applications matching the interview opportunity criteria.

  • Est. Additional Allowances: This is the estimated additional allowances if all opportunities had an interview vs. an RCE. It is calculated as “total interview opportunities” * avg (examiner interview win rate - examiner RCE win rate).

  • Est. Cost Change (vs. RCE): For in-house teams only, this metric indicates the estimated cost change if all interview opportunities were interviewed vs. filing an RCE. This is calculated based on average attorney fees assessed, as reported by AIPLA's 2023 Report of the Economic Survey, and USPTO fees. See below for the fee table.

Interview Opportunities Table

The interview opportunities table displays all applications meeting the criteria described above and includes the following columns:

  • Application Number

  • Title

  • Num. Office Actions

  • Num. RCEs

  • Examiner (should be a link to the examiner report)

  • Int. vs. RCE % Difference (as a percentage)

  • Interview Win Rate (as a percentage)

  • RCE Win Rate (as a percentage)

  • Current Firm

  • Interview Cost (displayed as currency)

  • RCE Cost (displayed as currency)

Appeal Opportunities

An appeal opportunity is defined as a pending application:

  • with at least a user-set number of office actions,

  • with at least a user-set number of RCEs,

  • with no appeals, and

  • where the examiner’s Appeal win rate is at least a user-set number of percentage points higher than the examiner’s RCE win rate.

Appeal Opportunity Settings

The appeal settings allow the user to define the minimum number of office actions, RCEs, and the minimum percentage point difference between an examiner's appeal and RCE win rates for an application to be included as an appeal opportunity.

Appeal Opportunities Metrics

  • Total Appeal Opportunities: The total number of applications matching the appeal opportunity criteria.

  • Est. Additional Allowances: This is the estimated additional allowances if all opportunities had an interview vs. an RCE. It is calculated as “total interview opportunities” * avg (examiner appeal win rate - examiner RCE win rate).

  • Est. Cost Change (vs. RCE): For in-house teams only, this metric indicates the estimated cost change if all appeal opportunities were appealed vs. filing an RCE (assumes all appeals progress to a PTAB disposition). This is calculated based on average attorney fees assessed, as reported by AIPLA's 2023 Report of the Economic Survey, and USPTO fees. See below for the fee table.

Appeal Opportunities Table

The appeal opportunities table displays all applications meeting the criteria described above and includes the following columns:

  • Application Number

  • Title

  • Num. Office Actions

  • Num. RCEs

  • Num. Interviews

  • Examiner (should be a link to the examiner report)

  • Appeal. vs. RCE % Difference (as a percentage)

  • Appeal Win Rate (as a percentage)

  • RCE Win Rate (as a percentage)

  • Current Firm

  • Appeal Cost (displayed as currency)

  • RCE Cost (displayed as currency)

Continuation Opportunities

Continuation opportunities are pending applications with no existing child applications where the examiner's allowance rate is above a user-set percentage. The additional allowances and continuation filing costs are based on the assumption that a user-set percentage of the opportunities are acted upon.

Continuation Opportunity Settings

The continuation settings allow the user to define the minimum examiner allowance rate for an application to be included as a continuation opportunity. Additionally, the user can indicate the percentage of continuations filed. This setting affects the estimated filing cost (e.g. if there are 100 continuation opportunities and the user elects to file a continuation on 30% of those, the estimated filing cost will reflect the cost of filing 30 of the 100 continuation opportunities).

Continuation Opportunity Metrics

  • Total Continuation Opportunities: The total number of applications matching the continuation opportunity criteria.

  • Est. Additional Allowances: This is the estimated additional allowances if the user-set percentage of continuation opportunities are acted upon. It is calculated as “total continuation opportunities” * avg (examiner allowance rate)*{{% CONs Filed}}.

  • Est. Filing Cost: For in-house teams only, this metric indicates the estimated cost change if all appeal opportunities were appealed vs. filing an RCE (assumes all appeals progress to a PTAB disposition). This is calculated based on average attorney fees assessed, as reported by AIPLA's 2023 Report of the Economic Survey, and USPTO fees. See below for the fee table.

Continuation Opportunities Table

The continuation opportunities table displays all applications meeting the criteria described above and includes the following columns:

  • Application Number

  • Title

  • Num. Office Actions

  • Examiner (should be a link to the examiner report)

  • Examiner Allowance Rate

  • Current Firm

Long Prosecutions

Long prosecutions are applications that are pending and have had more office actions than any allowed application in front of the assigned examiner. The examiner must have more than 10 disposed applications for inclusion.

Long Prosecutions Metrics

  • Total Long Prosecutions: The total number of applications matching the long prosecution criteria.

Long Prosecutions Table

The long prosecutions table displays all applications meeting the criteria described above and includes the following columns:

  • Application Number

  • Title

  • Examiner (should be a link to the examiner report)

  • Num. Office Actions

  • Examiner Max Allowed Office Actions

  • Examiner Allowance Rate

  • Current Firm

Low Allowance Rate Examiners

This section displays pending applications that are assigned to examiners with less than or equal to a user-set allowance rate.

Low Allowance Rate Settings

The low allowance rate settings allow the user to define the maximum examiner allowance rate for an application to be considered to be in front of a low allowance rate examiner.

Low Allowance Rate Examiner Metrics

  • Total Pending Applications: The total number of applications in front of examiners with low allowance rates, as defined by the user in the settings.

  • Your Allowance Rate: This is your firm or company's historic allowance rate in front of examiners with low allowance rates (as defined in the settings).

  • Est. Total Prosecution Spend: For in-house teams only, this metric shows the estimated amount spent on prosecuting the applications displayed in the table so far. This is calculated based on average attorney fees assessed, as reported by AIPLA's 2023 Report of the Economic Survey, and USPTO fees. See below for the fee table.

Low Allowance Examiners Table

The low allowance rate examiners table displays all applications meeting the criteria described above and includes the following columns:

  • Application Number

  • Title

  • Examiner (should be a link to the examiner report)

  • Examiner Allowance Rate

  • Num. Office Actions

  • Num. Amendments

  • Num. Interviews

  • Num. RCEs

  • Num. Appeals

  • Num. IDSs

  • Current Firm

Attorneys' Fees

Attorney Fees are taken from the 2023 AIPLA Report of the Economic Survey.

  • Utility Filing Fee: $10,000

    Median, Original utility application, relatively complex mechanical (Preparation and Filing), p. I-108

  • Design Filing Fee: $2,600

    Median, US design patent application (Preparation and Filing + Median, Formal drawings for design patent application), p. I-132

  • Post-Filing Formalities: $360

    Median, Formalities, including preparing and filing formal declarations, assignments, and powers of attorney, responding to pre-examination notices, and preparing papers to make corrections, p. I-114

  • Interview Fee: $1,000

    Median, Preparing for and conducting examiner interview, p. I-115

  • Amendment Fee: $3,000

    Median, Patent application amendment/argument, relatively complex, mechanical (Preparation and Filing), p. I-109

  • Appeal Fee: $8,000

    Median, Appeal to Board in utility patent application with oral argument, p. I-110

  • IDS Fee: $360

    Median, Preparing and filing Information Disclosure Statement (IDS), less than 50 references, p. I-113

  • Post Allowance Fees: $750

    Median, Issuing an allowed application (All post-allowance activity), p. I-110

USPTO Fees

  • Utility Filing, Search & Examination: $2,000

  • Design Filing, Search & Examination: $1,300

  • Utility Issue Fee: $1,290

  • Design Issue Fee: $1,300

  • Request for Continued Examination (RCE) – 1st Request: $1,500

  • Request for Continued Examination (RCE) – 2nd and Subsequent Requests: $2,860

  • Notice of Appeal: $905

  • Forwarding an Appeal in an Application or Ex Parte Reexamination Proceeding to the Board: $2,535

  • Request for Oral Hearing: $1,460

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