Recently, the state of patent-eligibility (especially abstract ideas) has been the talk of the patent bar. Yesterday, revised examination guidelines took effect, changing the direction for examiners to examine abstract ideas at the USPTO. For its part, the PTAB has been playing a role in the abstract idea flux as applicants increasingly turn to the Board for overturning difficult rejections. Here, we report that the reversal rate for abstract ideas continues to climb slightly higher.

October 2018 had 30 decisions out of 185 total decisions in which the Board wholly reversed abstract idea rejections, or a reversal rate of 16.2%. This is up from the previous month (September) and it continues a largely unbroken streak of 5 consecutive months with relatively high reversal rates. In fact, during this streak, each month experienced an abstract idea reversal rate over 15% with the sole exception of September, which came close at 14.4%. Prior to this streak, the PTAB had a much gloomier streak for abstract idea appellants, where the reversal rate for abstract ideas was below 15% for eight consecutive months, as we reported here.

Below is a snapshot of October 2018 being queried for abstract idea rejections on Anticipat’s Research page. You can find all these decisions for this time frame, for other time frames, and a whole host of other issues on appeal to guide your prosecution strategy.

To access this and other types of appeals information using Anticipat’s Research database, feel free to sign up for a 14-day trial.

With new leadership at the USPTO, and as seen from recent appeals data, the pendulum of patent-eligibility continues its slow swing in favor of applicants, even if this swing is at times unpredictable.