West Virginia University College of Law Professor Sean Tu recently published new scholarship in the Florida State Law Review Online. The article is titled Patent Examination and Examiner Interviews and is also available on SSRN: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3725770
From the abstract:
Examiner interviews are one of the most powerful tools to help both inventors and examiners understand and overcome specific issues during prosecution. Direct discussions between an applicant and an examiner can help bridge the gap between misunderstandings of prior art, the invention or statements in the specification. When used correctly, examiner interviews can dramatically decrease the time in prosecution and help applicants quickly reach a final disposition. This study reviews approximately 1.1 million patent applications corresponding to every patent application with an examiner interview between 2007 to June 2020 to determine the effectiveness of examiner interviews. This study establishes that examiner interviews dramatically decrease the number of Office Actions needed to reach a final disposition (allowance or abandonment).
Find more of Professor Tu's scholarship on SSRN and SelectedWorks.