I recently saw an update about the ongoing saga of Gilbert Hyatt’s patents that have been pending for over 35 years. It made me wonder: who is on the flip side of that bell curve? That is, whose patents were pending for a very short amount of time? To get the best measure, I wanted to know which patents were allowed fastest – not which ones paid their issue fees and issued the fastest.
From filing to allowance in 9 days
The overall fasted to allowance for applications filed since 2000 appears to be U.S. Patent 9,724,551, “Stretching Device”, which was filed March 16, 2017 and allowed an amazing 9 days later on March 25, 2017. The application was not a track 1 application, nor did it have any petition to make special.
The top 10 Fastest allowances (utility applications since 2000)
Here’s the rest of the Top 10 (note I have only included utility applications, not design applications)
Application | Filing Date | Allowance Date | Days | Art Unit | Examiner | Notes |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
15461254 | 20170316 | 20170325 | 9 | 3764 | LEE, JOSHUA S | Continuation |
15644775 | 20170708 | 20170718 | 10 | 2884 | GAWORECKI, MARK R | Made Special (Inventor Age) |
15621528 | 20170613 | 20170623 | 10 | 1774 | RASHID, FAZLE A | Continuation |
15489295 | 20170417 | 20170427 | 10 | 1625 | MORRIS, PATRICIA L | Divisional |
15587635 | 20170505 | 20170515 | 10 | 3618 | JOHNS, HILARY LYNN | Continuation |
15608557 | 20170530 | 20170609 | 10 | 1625 | ROZOF, TIMOTHY R | Continuation |
15622480 | 20170614 | 20170626 | 12 | 1726 | LEWIS, BEN | Continuation |
14665518 | 20150323 | 20150404 | 12 | 3623 | SINGH, GURKANWALJIT | Continuation |
15581613 | 20170428 | 20170510 | 12 | 1625 | ROZOF, TIMOTHY R | Divisional |
15340080 | 20161101 | 20161113 | 12 | 2194 | MUDRICK, TIMOTHY A | Continuation |
Continuations and divisionals get expedited treatment
Note that, only one application in the top 10 was made special (incidentally, apparently a petition to make special based on inventor age can be automatically granted in EFS). The rest were continuations and divisionals. This topic — the expedited treatment of continuations and divisionals — is something that I have been intending to write about and will in the near future.
9 of the Top 10 fastest allowances came in 2017
This accords with the USPTO’s reported statistics of decreasing pendency time — a very good thing.
If you need a patent fast, try to get in front of a Timothy!
Coincidentally, 3 of the top 10 were examined by a Timothy! Turns out Timothy was a very popular name for a long time (source behindthename.com):
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