In a press release issued last week, the European Patent Office announced that in 2008 the grant rate for patent applications dropped to 49.5%, the first time the rate has been below 50%. Meanwhile, in statistics from 2007, the Japanese Patent Office reported an allowance rate of 48.9%. This is actually in line with JPO numbers from recent years, ranging from 48.5% to 50.5% since 2003. Add this to the 44.2% number for FY2008 in the US, and one begins to wonder why applicants are continuing to file applications at all.
One can speculate on the reasons for these decreases in allowance rates. IPWatchdog gives a Perspective of an Anonymous Examiner that indicates that previous PTO Director Jon Dudas was a strong proponent of a “reject, reject, reject now” policy. Examiner training and pay seems to be tied to this policy.
IPWatchdog has also reported that the numbers are getting worse in the US. For the first quarter of FY2009, the allowance rate was down to 42%.
The EPO did report a 3.6% increase in application filings from 2007 to 2008 (141,400 to 146,600), but the JPO reported a 3% decline in filings from 2006 to 2007, which follows a 4.3% decline between 2005 and 2006. I have already reported on the US PTO’s significant decrease in filings during 2009, here and here.
Of course, all of this further exacerbates the PTO’s budget problems. This cannot be good for the US economy that is already in dire straits. We really need Pres. Obama to fix the mess that is getting worse and worse at the PTO.
