Estimating US patent "oppositions"

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smartrah
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:41 pm

Estimating US patent "oppositions"

Post by smartrah » Thu Jun 21, 2018 7:01 am

Hello!

I have been trying to find out how many "oppositions" a certain company is involved in in the USPTO.

I used PATSTAT online (spring 2018) and used "OPPOS" as lecg_name in tls803_legal_event_code. I understand "OPPOS" contains reexaminations, covered business methods, inter-partes reviews, post-grant reviews, and others. However, I find the numbers to be very underwhelming. For example, I ran the following query for Microsoft and found just 26 patents that were "opposed" and the last being in 2006. Is it possible that Microsoft was not involved in any "opposition" at the USPTO since 2006?

SELECT a.appln_id, a.appln_auth, a.appln_filing_date FROM tls201_appln a

INNER JOIN tls207_pers_appln pa ON pa.appln_id = a.appln_id
INNER JOIN tls206_person p ON p.person_id = pa.person_id

INNER JOIN tls231_inpadoc_legal_event l ON l.appln_id = pa.appln_id
INNER JOIN tls803_legal_event_code e ON e.event_code = l.event_code AND e.event_auth = l.event_auth

WHERE pa.applt_seq_nr > 0

AND (e.lecg_name = 'OPPOS' OR e.event_descr LIKE '%reexamination%')
AND e.event_auth = 'US'

AND p.han_name LIKE 'Microsoft%'

GROUP BY a.appln_id, a.appln_auth, a.appln_filing_date

ORDER BY a.appln_filing_date DESC



In addition, I ran the following query to see all possible USPTO "oppositions" since 2007. Again, I thought the numbers were too few for a patent office like USPTO:


SELECT tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.event_code, tls803_legal_event_code.event_descr,

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2007 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2007",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2008 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2008",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2009 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2009",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2010 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2010",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2011 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2011",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2012 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2012",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2013 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2013",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2014 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2014",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2015 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2015",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2016 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2016",

COUNT(distinct(case when appln_filing_year = 2017 then tls201_appln.appln_id end)) as "2017"


FROM tls201_appln join tls231_inpadoc_legal_event on tls201_appln.appln_id = tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.appln_id

join tls803_legal_event_code on tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.event_auth = tls803_legal_event_code.event_auth

and tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.event_code = tls803_legal_event_code.event_code

where appln_auth = 'US'
and tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.event_auth = 'US'
AND (tls803_legal_event_code.lecg_name = 'OPPOS' OR tls803_legal_event_code.event_descr LIKE '%reexamination%')
group by tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.event_code, tls803_legal_event_code.event_descr

order by tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.event_code



I will be grateful if anybody can point out what's going on.


Thanks!

Rahul Kapoor


EPO / PATSTAT Support
Posts: 425
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:33 pm
Contact:

Re: Estimating US patent "oppositions"

Post by EPO / PATSTAT Support » Wed Jul 25, 2018 12:56 pm

Dear Rahul,

I understand from your question that you are aware that there are no real oppositions in the US patent system, but re-examinations / post grant reviews. Also, a company may be involved on 2 sides: it may be either the appellant or the respondent / patent owner in post-grant review proceedings.

A quick assessment based on the PATSTAT Spring 2018 edition, retrieving records with company Microsoft as appellant/opponent and as patent owner :
  • number of US patents for which Microsoft is appellant/opponent in inter partes review proceedings: 77
  • number of US patents of Microsoft with at least 1 legal event in the category OPPOS: 20, with the latest legal event in this category in 2017.
Still, one could expect these numbers to be higher.

The delivery of US legal event data continues to be a special case, and we at the EPO need to investigate it further. We will update this thread when we have more findings.

As a positive outlook: For the 2018 Autumn Edition PATSTAT legal events will be grouped by legal event categories according to WIPO ST.27 (http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/st ... -27-01.pdf ). This new WIPO recommended categories will replace the proprietary categories (like “OPPO”) we us up to now.

Martin
PATSTAT Support Team
EPO - Vienna
patstat @ epo.org


smartrah
Posts: 5
Joined: Fri Jun 29, 2012 1:41 pm

Re: Estimating US patent "oppositions"

Post by smartrah » Sat Aug 11, 2018 6:59 am

Thank you Martin for your answer. I will look forward to the new version of PATSTAT.

Meanwhile, I have a possible irregularity to point out in "OPPOS" groupings. When searching for opposed EP patents, OPPOS also returns patents where "no opposition was filed". For example, patent with epodoc number: EP20030735733 is shown in PATSTAT under "OPPOS" and EP Register shows "No opposition filed within time limit".

Also here are my queries:

SELECT TOP 100 c.event_descr, c.lecg_name FROM tls201_appln a

INNER JOIN tls231_inpadoc_legal_event b ON b.appln_id = a.appln_id
INNER JOIN tls803_legal_event_code c ON c.event_code = b.event_code AND c.event_auth = b.event_auth

WHERE a.appln_auth = 'EP'
AND c.lecg_name = 'OPPOS'

GROUP BY c.event_descr, c.lecg_name



Best regards,

Rahul


EPO / PATSTAT Support
Posts: 425
Joined: Thu Feb 22, 2007 5:33 pm
Contact:

Re: Estimating US patent "oppositions"

Post by EPO / PATSTAT Support » Mon Aug 13, 2018 5:09 pm

Hello Rahul,
I had a look at the application you specified, but could not see any legal status referring to a filed opposition on that application.

Code: Select all

select reg101_appln.appln_id
      ,[appln_auth]
      ,[appln_nr]
      ,[appln_filing_date]
      ,[status]
      ,[internat_appln_id]
      ,[internat_appln_nr]
      ,[event_seq_nr]
      ,[event_type]
      ,[event_auth]
      ,[event_code]
      ,[event_publn_date]
      ,[event_effective_date]
      ,[event_descr]
      ,[ref_doc_auth]
      ,[ref_doc_nr]
      ,[ref_doc_kind]
      ,[lapse_country]
      ,[lapse_date]
      ,[lapse_text]
     from register2018a.dbo.reg101_appln
join patstat2018a.dbo.tls231_inpadoc_legal_event on reg101_appln.appln_id = tls231_inpadoc_legal_event.appln_id
where appln_nr = '03735733'
order by event_seq_nr
Best regards,
Geert BOEDT
PATSTAT Support Team
EPO - Vienna
patstat @ epo.org


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