U.S. Patent Office Issues Record Number of Utility PatentsSeptember 29, 2017

For the 2017 fiscal year, the U.S. Patent Office issued 315,386 utility patents, which is an all-time high for any one-year period. Twenty years ago, the U.S. Patent Office issued approximately 125,000 utility patents.The first time that more than 200,000 patents were issued was 2010.It only took four years to reach 300,000 patents, in 2014.While there is a backlog of over 500,000 patent applications waiting to be examined, the 2017 allowance rate was 71.4% (also an all-time high).

To learn more, contact Kirk M. Hartung, Intellectual Property Attorney in the Mechanical practice group at MVS.