Lewis Roca Achieves Top 15 Ranking for Patent Allowances

Press Release

03/31/2016

LOS ANGELES – Lewis Roca is ranked 15th in the nation in allowance rates for patent applications and 43rd overall based on a weighted average of objective criteria, including total number of applications filed, in the latest release of the Juristat Top 100 U.S. Patent Firms.

The list is the only ranking of U.S. patent prosecution firms based on objective measurement of those firms’ performance before the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), according to Juristat.

“Inclusion in the Top 100 U.S. Patent Firms, and the top 20 in allowance rates, reflects our broad industry and technical depth across the entire spectrum of IP,” said Art Hasan, co-leader of the Intellectual Property practice group at Lewis Roca. “Clients continue to recognize our team’s value, efficiency and technical expertise for guiding them through the patent prosecution process.”

Data from more than 7 million utility patent applications were analyzed and results based on a weighted average of the following four criteria, said Juristat:

• Total number of applications filed (for applications filed between July 2013 - July 2014)
• Allowance rate (for applications disposed between July 2013 - July 2014)
• Average number of office actions to allowance (for applications disposed between July 2013 - July 2014)
• Average time to allowance (for applications disposed between July 2013 - July 2014)

Analysis was limited to firms that filed at least 400 applications between July 2013 and July 2014. After the firms’ rankings were calculated for each criterion, an overall ranking was calculated by determining a weighted average of each firm’s four rankings.

According to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, utility patents are issued for the invention of a new and useful process, machine, manufacture or composition of matter, or a new and useful improvement thereof. The patent generally permits its owner to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention for a period of up to 20 years from the date of patent application filing, subject to the payment of maintenance fees.

Approximately 90% of the patent documents issued by the USPTO in recent years have been utility patents, also referred to as "patents for invention."

###