The average pendency before the Board of Patent Appeals and Interferences (BPAI) for appeals is now less than six months, and less than 12 months for interferences. Almost all BPAI appeals are handled electronically.

Here's the table on examination backlog.

What's going on...

Almost 97% of patent applications are processed electronically, up from 88% in 2004.

Russell Shaw reported in ZDNet, using a somewhat ersatz statistical method (but hey, close enough for government work), that the states with the highest per capita patenting were Idaho, Vermont and Alaska, and the least inventive states were Louisiana (worst), Alabama, and Mississippi, followed, a little surprisingly, by Virginia, the home state of the patent office.

Another interesting statistic (from page 128) is that the leading number of patents filed by foreign residents went to the Japanese (34,079), seconded by Germans (10,502), then South Koreans (4,811).

Of U.S. government agencies, the Navy gets the most patents (1,657), seconded by the Army (694), with Health & Human Services (476) and NASA (428) following (p. 130).

There were 524 ex parte examination requests filed in 2005, up from 441 in 2004 (p. 131).