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49 Fla. St. U.L. Rev. Online [1] (2022)

handle is hein.journals/fsuon49 and id is 1 raw text is: PATENT EXAMINATION AND EXAMINER INTERVIEWS S. SEAN TUl ABSTRACT Examiner interviews are one of the most powerful tools to help both inventors and examiners understand and overcome specific issues during prosecution. Direct discussions between an applicant and an examiner can help bridge the gap between misunderstandings of prior art, the invention, or statements in the specification. When used correctly, examiner interviews can dramatically decrease the time in prosecution and help applicants quickly reach a final disposition. This paper reviews approximately 1.1 million patent applications corresponding to every patent application with an examiner interview between 2007 and June 2020 to determine the effectiveness of examiner interviews. This study establishes that examiner interviews dramatically decrease the number of Office Actions needed to reach a final disposition (allowance or abandonment). INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................... 2 I. INTERVIEW PRACTICE............................................................................................................. 4 A. General Information About Interview Practice .................................................................... 5 1. Interview Basics ....................................................................................................................... 5 2. Tim ing of Interview .................................................................................................................. 5 i. R outine R equests...................................................................................................................... 6 ii. Special R equests....................................................................................................................... 6 3. Who Can Request An Interview ............................................................................................ 7 i. Applicant-Initiated Interviews .............................................................................................. 7 ii. Examiner-Initiated Interviews............................................................................................... 8 4. Who Can Participate in An Interview .................................................................................... 8 5. Interview Best Practices .................................................................................................... 8 B. Streamlining Access to Interview Practice............................................................................. 9 1. Automated Interview Request (AIR) Tool........................................................................... 10 2. Technology Center Interview Specialists ............................................................................. 10 C. USPTO Incentives for Interview Practice ........................................................................... 10 H. THE DATASET AND RESULTS ......................................................................................... 11 1 Professor, West Virginia University College of Law. The data for this work was provided by PatentAdvisor.com. This work was funded in part by the generous support of the West Virginia University College of Law Hodges Research Fund. Sincere thanks to the many readers who offered comments on earlier drafts, including Mark Lemley, Jake Lindford, Anne Lofaso and workshops at the Campbell Law School and the 18th Annual Works-in-Progress Intellectual Property Colloquium.