ETA Metric

PatentAdvisor ETA™ is the single most informative metric for predicting Patent Examiner behavior.

It is now possible to easily, and with more accuracy than ever, predict an assigned examiner’s behavior and identify cases that require extra care and a carefully crafted prosecution strategy. Superior in predictability to examiner allowance rate, the new examiner time allocation metric through PatentAdvisor ETA is calculated using a proprietary algorithm that takes into consideration the examiner's pending portfolio, how long they have been at the Patent Office, number of office actions written and a number of other factors.

PatentAdvisor ETA is more accurate and a better predictor of examiner’s behavior than Allowance Rate because it:

• Includes all pending applications
• Factors in how long the examiner has been at the Patent Office
• Is driven by the examiner’s behaviors, not by the filer’s actions

Within PatentAdvisor, the Examiner Time Allocation metric is instantly identifiable, reflected as a color-coded range of numerical favorability.

We have further broken down the ETA data point into easy-to-understand color categories that identify, in the most simplistic terms, whether you have been assigned a favorable or less favorable examiner.

• Red = ETA of 6+, indicating a high likelihood of long prosecution length, examiner having less experience, granting less than 15 applications per year, on average

• Yellow = ETA of 2.6-5.9, indicating mediocre prosecution length, examiner having average experience, granting between 15-150 applications per year, on average
• Green = ETA of .1-2.5, indicating high likelihood of a short prosecution length, examiner having lots of experience, granting over 150 applications per year, on average

Steps to consider for each category of Examiner ETA:

• Green = Do not amend aggressively, this examiner likes to grant and you are likely to get allowance without an RCE. Consider an interview.
• Yellow = Caution, dig into the analytics to determine which strategies work best with these examiners: pilot programs, interview, RCE– need to know what the data tells you to minimize spend and maximize claim depth.
• Red = These are not likely to issue without considerable amendments and spend. Consider abandonment, aggressive amendments, or appeal. Depending on the application’s value, early appeal may be the best step, particularly as these applications often end up on appeal anyway.

Question listed first in bold. Answer is in italics immediately following the question.

1. What does ETA stand for? Examiner Time Allocation
2. What is ETA? Examiner Time Allocation, ETA, is the single most informative metric for predicting Patent Examiner behavior. It is a PatentAdvisor™ exclusive metric that is based on a proprietary algorithm that measures how an examiner behaves. It is a predictive indicator of prosecution length that can easily identify cases that require extra care and a carefully crafted prosecution strategy.
3. How is ETA calculated? ETA = number of office actions/ number of allowances + factors in our proprietary algorithm which includes: pending cases, examiner tenure, examiner-driven decisions along with other proprietary factors.
4. Why is ETA better than Examiner Allowance Rate? Examiner allowance rate does not account for the examiner’s pending portfolio and is strongly biased by abandonments that are out of the examiner’s control. ETA incorporates the examiner’s pending portfolio and is driven by the examiner’s own actions. Also, while allowance rate is based off of the PAIR examiner assigned to the case at termination, ETA is based upon the examiner’s actual body of work.
5. How is ETA predictive? It is predictive of prosecution length/cost and the likelihood of obtaining a patent.
6. What do you mean “ETA is driven by examiner’s behavior and not the filer’s?” All the factors that go into the ETA calculation are based off the examiner’s own actions: mainly, writing office actions and writing notices of allowance. By contrast, allowance rate is calculated based off only one examiner action (allowing cases) and two application actions (paying the issue fee and abandoning cases). The examiner has no control over whether the applicant pays the issue fee after he/she issues the notice of allowance and they have no control over whether the applicant decides to abandon an application.
7.  Why is it called Examiner Time Allocation? Because it reflects the way the examiner spends his/her day. Are they spending all their time writing office actions? Or trying to bring cases to resolution?
8. Won’t ETA just be proportional to the allowance rate? Yes, at the extremes. An examiner with a very high allowance rate (85%+) will almost always have a low ETA, and an examiner with a very low allowance rate (<20%) will almost always have a high ETA. But in the middle ranges, allowance rate can vary wildly from ETA. For example, Examiners with an ETA between 2 and 3 can have an allowance rate anywhere between 55 and 90%.