Patents: US Filing Data
Dennis Crouch has published an excellent article on American patent applications data in Patently-O. Dennis has analysed 10,000 of the most recent patents "to see what's going on with pendency and other issues." He found the average time from filing to grant in the case of applications that were not based on a previous US filing to have been 3 years and 4 months and the average time from filing to grant in the case of applications based on a prior US filing to have been 2 years and 11 months. Applications based on foreign filings seemed to take the same amount of time regardless whether they were based on a previous filing or not. It is interesting to compare the US Patent and Trademark Office's performance with that of our own . Some comparable data is available from "Facts and Figures 2004-2005" and some performance data can be checked from the Patent Office's Annual Report and Accounts for 2005 and 2006 . Judging by the table on page 58 of the Annua...