Horizontal color image of pretty businesswoman in warehouse holding touchpad, looking up to the ceiling and smiling.

Anticipate Examiner Behavior for Better Prosecution Outcomes

Visualize your examiner performance and tailor your prosecution strategy with PatentAdvisor™ Examiner Time Allocation (ETA™).

Predict both the likelihood and difficulty of obtaining a patent

Many commonly used patent statistics fail to account for important examiner-specific information and actions examiners have taken on pending patent applications, but these actions are an important part of the calculation. With variability at every level of the USPTO, PatentAdvisor ETA algorithm yields a more comprehensive and reliable measurement of examiner difficulty.

PatentAdvisor ETA vs Examiner Allowance Rate

Why PatentAdvisor ETA is a better metric.

Includes all pending applications

Factors in how long the examiner has been at the Patent Office

Driven by the examiner’s behaviors, not by the filer’s actions

How to Effectively Respond to a 103 Rejection
Business Team Working with Crystal Ball. This stock image has a horizontal composition.

Know when to build your strongest approach and when to appeal

PatentAdvisor ETA is an exclusive metric based on a proprietary algorithm measuring how an examiner behaves. It is a predictive indicator of prosecution length that can easily identify cases requiring extra care and enable a more carefully crafted prosecution strategy.

Instantly identify your favorability with color-coding

PatentAdvisor ETA scores are displayed in easy-to-understand color categories that identify whether you have been assigned a favorable or less favorable examiner.

  • Red = Inefficient, less experience, granting less than 15 applications per year, on average.
  • Yellow = In between, somewhere in the middle
  • Green = Efficient, lots of experience, granting over 50 applications per year, on average.

Steps to consider for each category of Examiner ETA

Red

These are not likely to issue without considerable amendments and spend. Consider abandonment, aggressive amendments, or appeal. Depending on the application’s value, an early appeal may be the best step, particularly as these applications often end up on appeal anyway.

Yellow

Caution, dig into the analytics to determine which strategies work best with these examiners: pilot programs, interviews, RCE– need to know what the data tells you to minimize spending and maximize claim depth.

Green

Do not amend aggressively, this examiner likes to grant and you are likely to get an allowance without an RCE. Consider an interview.

Learn how PatentAdvisor ETA can enhance your prosecution strategy

Multi-ethnic group of business persons making high-five

Let us help you bring predictability to your prosecution process and better manage stakeholders’ expectations. Fill out our form to schedule a PatentAdvisor demo.

Related Resources

3 Reasons PatentAdvisor Examiner ETA™ Is Better Than Allowance Rate

Examiner’s allowance rate can help understand an examiner’s history, but patent analytics can predict an examiner’s future behavior.

What To Do After a Final Office Action

Patent examiner data and statistics can help patent practitioners develop well-informed strategies after receiving a final office action.

Patent Analytics for Predictions, Performance and Evaluations

Sophisticated patent analytics enable users to make accurate predictions about patent examiner behavior and conduct performance evaluations.

How to Compare Patent Prosecution Performances

The LexisNexis® PatentAdvisor® patent prosecution platform can be used to easily compare patent prosecution performances.