What’s within the Closing Rejections: Eligibility

by Dennis Crouch

Although there have been some enhancements, preliminary workplace actions often require a good quantity clean-up and fine-tuning. This course of typically contains rectifying typographical errors and clarifying unfastened declare language. It’s additionally widespread for the examiner to misconstrue facets of the invention.  Nonetheless, by the point the ultimate rejection stage is reached, these points are normally addressed, and the traces of distinction are extra clearly drawn.  So, for my examine right here, I made a decision to look solely at remaining workplace actions and ask the query of what proportion of those contain eligibility rejections.

The chart above experiences the share of ultimate workplace actions that embrace an eligibility rejection.  The uppermost (orange dashed) line on the chart represents purposes examined by the eCommerce artwork items (particularly the 3620s, 3680s, and 3690s). Notably, in 2023 greater than 90% of the ultimate rejections for the 3690s (finance, banking, insurance coverage) included an eligibility rejection.  The center (gray) line within the chart pertains to non-financial information processing innovations (2120s). The primary focus of 2120s examination has now shifted predominantly to points associated to AI  simulation and modeling. The third and final (double blue) line within the chart represents all purposes. This totals line illustrates that round 9% of all remaining rejections embrace an eligibility focus. This is a rise from the two% fee in 2012.  Notably, about half of the USPTO artwork items have an eligibility rejection fee of round 0%.

One situation with my examine right here method is the time issue. Nearly all of circumstances that obtain a remaining rejection are no less than three years faraway from their efficient submitting date, and so more moderen filings is likely to be doing a greater job.  This examine was carried out primarily based on a pattern measurement of 100,000 remaining rejections and is restricted solely to publicly obtainable information.