Legal Research

US Patent Counts, Q2 2009

Plant patent no. PP20,000 was issued on May 19, 2009 for a new and distinct type of Cuphea plant, a type of flowering shrub. The inventor is Christiaan Unger of Worms, Germany, who is credited with three other plant patents. Design patent no. 600,000 is expected in October. Only two statutory invention registrations have been registered this year, which suggests that their popularity is waning. SIRs are, for all intents and purposes, simply published applications. They may be cited as prior art but carry no patent rights.

Table 1. Quarterly Patent and PGPub Counts*

2009 ..... Patents (B) .....PGPubs (A)..... Total (A + B)
Q1 ..... 49,227 ..... 83,855 ..... 133,112
Q2 ..... 48,596 ..... 81,288 ..... 129,884

*Based on preliminary weekly data from the USPTO website. Totals may change after the fact due to withdrawn patents and published applications.

Table 2. Weekly Averages and Medians (Q2)

Patents ..... 3,738 ..... 3,764
PGPubs ..... 6,253 ..... 6,228

Table 3. Number Ranges for 2009, Jan. 1 - June 30

Utility patents ..... 7,472,428 - 7,555,787
Reissues ..... RE40,613 - RE40,817
PGPubs ..... 2009/0000001 - 2009/0183289
Designs ..... D584,026 - D595,475
Plants ...... PP19,613 - PP20,148
SIRs ..... H2,228 - H2,229

Full post as published by The Patent Librarian's Notebook on July 17, 2009 (boomark / email).