Fast (FAST!) Prosecution & Allowance

[mersenne]

A client claimed that Walmart gets patents allowed in a year or 18 months.  This seemed unlikely, but I looked into it, and:

8,781,908 filed 11/2008 granted 7/2014 (not unusual)
9,779,395 filed 5/2015 granted 10/2017 (OK, I'll buy that)
9,788,157 filed 8/2016 granted 10/2017 (wait a minute...)
9,654,734 filed 10/2016 granted 5/2017 (what??)

None were filed with early publication, Track One or Old Man petitions, but '157 published at 6 months, first OA at 7; and '734 got a first-action allowance at 3 months, and didn't publish until after the issue notice (!)

What's going on here?

[bluerogue]

I didn't look at the patents, but it sounds like a continuation based on the 6 month publication.  A few things going on here probably.  An AU with low inventory, application assigned to the same examiner, terminal disclaimer, and allowing close to the same subject matter as before. All could contribute to an application being allowed that quickly.

[mersenne]

'157 and '734 are original apps, each claiming priority to provisional filed a year before.  I'm especially surprised that '734 got examined and allowed at 3 months -- it seems like the PTO would barely have time to read the application, figure out the art unit, and send it over.  (Art unit was 2655 Dynamic Information Storage or Retrieval).

I wish I could get my applications to rock-n-roll like that!

[lazyexaminer]

Even better, the '734 was a first action allowance with no reasons for allowance  That's my pet peeve.

My first assumption was the same as bluerogue, but these seem weird in that they are not clearly related to any other cases.

The examiner of '734 seems to have a number of other recent issued patents, not Walmart, with 18 month pendency or less. Maybe that art unit or that examiner's docket is just like that...

[Robert K S]

I've had some allowances that were just as fast but they were on inventions that were rather particular in operation and for which the claims were necessarily narrow.  (Generally when we get a first-action allowance, we curse our claims for being too narrow.  During drafting of one application I'm thinking of, we looked for ways to broaden the claims, and with each attempt, I said, "But that's not the invention anymore.")

But '734's broadest claims are orders of magnitude broader than I've ever seen on a first-action allowance in any of my own cases.  It is as if the examiner had never touched a computer graphics related case before, didn't even know where to begin.

Under some of the examiners I encounter, claim 1 of '734 would be rejected as "directed to" the "abstract idea" of photogrammetric videoconferencing.

[snapshot]

Even better, the '734 was a first action allowance with no reasons for allowance  That's my pet peeve.

My first assumption was the same as bluerogue, but these seem weird in that they are not clearly related to any other cases.

The examiner of '734 seems to have a number of other recent issued patents, not Walmart, with 18 month pendency or less. Maybe that art unit or that examiner's docket is just like that...

The examination all around on that '734 patent is terrible.  Did you see how not detailed the search was?  Plus the lack of reasons for allowance in a first action issue is completely counter to USPTO policy.

[snapshot]

'157 and '734 are original apps, each claiming priority to provisional filed a year before.  I'm especially surprised that '734 got examined and allowed at 3 months -- it seems like the PTO would barely have time to read the application, figure out the art unit, and send it over.  (Art unit was 2655 Dynamic Information Storage or Retrieval).

I wish I could get my applications to rock-n-roll like that!

Cherry picking "easy" applications is very much a thing at the PTO, especially when it's the end of a quarter or fiscal year and examiners are desperate for counts to avoid warnings.  We're supposed to do first in/first out (it's in the MPEP), but there is no real enforcement of that.

[two banks of four]

Even better, the '734 was a first action allowance with no reasons for allowance  That's my pet peeve.

My first assumption was the same as bluerogue, but these seem weird in that they are not clearly related to any other cases.

The examiner of '734 seems to have a number of other recent issued patents, not Walmart, with 18 month pendency or less. Maybe that art unit or that examiner's docket is just like that...

The examination all around on that '734 patent is terrible.  Did you see how not detailed the search was?  Plus the lack of reasons for allowance in a first action issue is completely counter to USPTO policy.

It's amazing what some of the people get away with.  A search record with just four entries, and no discussion re: what's considered to be the most pertinent reference.  This is worse than half-assing something, and it appears that there was zero eff given.  I mean, even if someone were exceedingly familiar with a technology and knows the boundary between what's patentable and what isn't, one can't assume that everyone else recognizes this boundary.  Makes one wonder who this person obtained signatory authority in the very first place.  If I were the applicant, i'd be concerned about the quality of the patent received...

[lazyexaminer]

The examination all around on that '734 patent is terrible.  Did you see how not detailed the search was?  Plus the lack of reasons for allowance in a first action issue is completely counter to USPTO policy.

Aw man I didn't look at the search until I saw this.

The NOA was done the last biweek of the quarter. No, I'm not implying anything...

[MYK]

It's amazing what some of the people get away with.  A search record with just four entries, and no discussion re: what's considered to be the most pertinent reference.  This is worse than half-assing something, and it appears that there was zero eff given.

I've seen worse;  the examiner did exactly one query, using the exact wording of the title of the application (which was intentionally made unintelligible), found nothing, and first-action-allowed it.

It was a straightforward optical gate sensor and there were dozens of prior art 102 pieces available.