When handed an adverse patent application decision, the cost, time, and likelihood of success become the basic considerations for deciding whether to appeal the examiner’s decision to the Board of Appeals and Interferences. Given there are already 20,000 undecided appeals of examiner decisions hanging in limbo with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Board of Appeals, the decision to appeal must be made strategically.
Though seemingly odd advice, the best appeal may be the one you don’t make. Because of the number of undecided appeals queued up ahead of you, the average time from filing to a decision is almost 30 months. And the Board’s reversal rate has been declining in recent years to a reported rate of only 29 percent in 2010.
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