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August 24, 2008
Pulp Non-Fiction
Any
competent statistician will tell you that sample size is telling. So why do Andrew S.
Baluch and
Stephen B. Maebius just
look at
the first 30 of 308 inter partes reexaminations since late 1999, when the
practice began? From the smattering, the two
Foley & Lardner attorneys find reexamed claims downed a whopping 73% of the
time. 43% of the time, the patent holder didn't even bother to reply. The
authors term it "surprising efficacy." A sense of perspective would call it
numbers that tell you nothing noteworthy.
Old reexams, literally the first batch, that didn't fare well. Another exercise in rather meaningless patent stats by lawyers with, at best, facile statistical acumen. If they knew better, they would have bothered to provide a more complete, and interesting, picture.
A hat-tip of thanks to Professor Crouch at Patently-O.
Posted by Patent Hawk at August 24, 2008 10:28 AM | Prosecution
Comments
The problem is that of the remaining 308 reexams, most are still pending. Since they haven't been finally resolved, it's rather hard to evaluate their resolution.
Posted by: Judith at August 25, 2008 11:27 AM
Judith points out exactly the sampling bias - the sample only includes the reexams that were concluded most quickly, which of course will have a very high sample bias in favor of those for which "the patent holder didn't even bother to reply"
Posted by: David Boundy at August 26, 2008 8:31 AM