Friday, January 28, 2005

Is there cite-checking at the Minnesota Intellectual Property Review?

In an article "The Implementation of FDA Determinations in Litigation: Why Do We Defer to the PTO but Not to the FDA?," 5 Minn. Intell. Prop. Rev. 155 (2004), we have text at footnote 15:

-->The USPTO states that approximately two of three patent applications result in an issued patent. See General Information, supra note 14. This proportion significantly overstates the rejection rate due to the unique role of continuations and continuations-in-part in the U.S. patent system. See generally Cecil D. Quillen & Ogden H. Webster, Continuing Patent Applications and Performance of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 11 Fed. Cir. B.J. 1, 9-13 (2001) (concluding that the true "grant rate" is roughly 85 percent and the true "allowance rate" is 92 percent).<--


A note to author William G. Childs and the student cite checkers at the Minnesota Intellectual Property Review--

The paper cited, Quillen/Webster 11 Fed. Cir. B. J. 1 (2001) does NOT have the 85% and 92% numbers. Try instead the paper at 12 Fed. Cir. B. J. 35 (2002). The cite checkers could not possibly have checked the 2001 paper and found that information. For the exact relevant text in each Quillen paper, see the post on IPBiz: More on the "patent grant rate" saga.

Further, as a substantive point, both Quillen/Webster papers rely on data on CONTINUIING applications (which include divisionals, continuations, and continuations-in-part), not just continuations and continuations-in-part.

Also, one might question the text --This proportion significantly overstates the rejection rate due to the unique role of continuations and continuations-in-part in the U.S. patent system. --Note that the QW papers permit, and in fact at places report, a grant rate in excess of 100%. It may be that QW "overstate" the grant rate!


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