Virtual World Law Blog

Following passage of the Leahy-Smith America Invents Act in September 2011, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) began accepting requests for prioritized examination of patent applications through the Track I Prioritized Patent Examination Program. Simply put, Track I allows inventors and businesses, for a fee, to have their patents processed to completion in 12 months.

• 1,218 of the 1,231 requests for prioritized examination that have been decided were granted, which represents a 98.9% approval rate.
  
• 648 have already received a first office action, and another 34 will be mailed within days.
• On average, the PTO is getting a first action out in Track I cases just 30.7 days after approval of the petition - for a total elapsed period to first action of 66.4 days after filing of the request-petition, with the longest time to  first action being 70 days from grant of the petition.
•  23 allowances have already been mailed on Track I applications, the fastest of which was mailed just 37 days after the application was filed and 7 more allowances are currently in the pipeline.
• Of the Track I cases allowed so far, the average time to allowance is 39.2 days from petition approval.
  
• As for rejections, so far there have been three final rejections issued on Track I applications. The average time to final rejection has been 34.3 days, and the longest time to final was 50 days, both measured from approval of the Track I petition.
• The first Track I application is due to issue on Jan. 10, 2012. This application was filed Sept. 30, 2011.