Patexia Insight 16: IP Firms’ Growth and Decline in Q3 2016
This week at Patexia, our Data Science Team investigated third quarter changes in the number of registered patent practitioners. Examining data from the USPTO Practitioner Roster, we saw that at the end of the second quarter, there were 44,424 registered patent practitioners. With another 337 registered patent practitioners added to the ranks during the third quarter, we currently have 44,761 registered patent practitioners. This represented a 3% annualized growth and a 0.75% quarterly growth during the third quarter.
While there was overall growth in the IP legal sector, not all law firms increased their number of patent practitioners. The following chart visualizes the top 10 law firms with the largest growth and decline in their number of patent practitioners.
We limited our analysis to those firms with 50 or more patent practitioners. The biggest gainer was Cooley LLP, which added 19 new patent practitioners. The most notable decline occurred at Kenyon & Kenyon, where the law firm lost 13 patent practitioners and eventually closed. The remaining attorneys ended up joining the Texas law firm, Andrews Kurth.
The following table provides the actual number of patent practitioners for the end of the second and third quarters, as well as distinguishes between the number of patent agents and attorneys. During the third quarter, patent agents and attorneys grew by annualized rates of 4.4 percent and 2.6 percent, respectively. Additionally, the 3:1 ratio between patent attorneys and patent agents that existed at the conclusion of the second quarter remained effectively unchanged for the third quarter.
| Attorneys | Agents | All Practitioners | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Q2 |
33,313 |
11,111 | 44,424 |
| Q3 |
33,529 |
11,232 | 44,761 |
| Net Change | 216 | 121 | 337 |
To see how others did during the third quarter, the following table shows the changes of registered patent practitioners among the top 25 law firms. The source of data was the office of Enrollment and Discipline (OED) at the USPTO. Interestingly, the top 25 are unchanged but in terms of ranking there was some shuffling.
| Q3 Rank | Firm | Q2 Rank | Practitioners |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2 | 270 | |
| 2 | 1 | 265 | |
| 3 | Knobbe Martens | 3 | 260 |
| 4 | Kilpatrick Townsend | 4 | 215 |
| 5 | Foley & Lardner | 5 | 168 |
| 6 | Wilson Sonsini | 6 | 168 |
| 7 | Perkins Coie | 7 | 143 |
| 8 | Cooley | 14 | 142 |
| 9 | Schwegman Lundberg | 9 | 141 |
| 10 | Baker Botts | 8 | 140 |
| 11 | Jones Day | 11 | 136 |
| 12 | Morrison & Foerster | 10 | 132 |
| 13 | Brinks Gilson | 15 | 123 |
| 14 | Oblon McClelland | 12 | 121 |
| 15 | Sterne Kessler | 13 | 119 |
| 16 | Alston & Bird | 17 | 112 |
| 17 | Harness Dickey & Pierce | 18 | 109 |
| 18 | McDermott Will & Emery | 16 | 109 |
| 19 | Morgan Lewis & Bockius | 19 | 109 |
| 20 | McDonnell Boehnen | 20 | 105 |
| 21 | Haynes & Boone | 22 | 104 |
| 22 | Kirkland & Ellis | 21 | 102 |
| 23 | K & L Gates | 24 | 102 |
| 24 | Cantor Colburn | 25 | 102 |
| 25 | Ropes & Gray | 23 |
94 |
In terms of USPTO registration, there were 391 new patent practitioners from which 163 were attorneys and 228 were agents. There were also 54 registered patent practitioners that were removed (retired) from the USPTO’s list of registered patent practitioners. This means the net change for the quarter was addition of 337 patent practitioners. During the same period, 1,234 patent practitioners changed firms which is equivalent to annualized 11 percent rate for lateral moves.
This third quarter growth represents a promising step toward meeting the demand for patent professionals. As you may recall from our earlier article in July that not only is there a shortage of patent attorneys, but the number of applications filed has risen. There has also been a large rise in patent litigation, although this trend has slowed substantially in 2016. If the above trends continue, we are annually adding about 3.5 percent new patent practitioners while about 0.5 percent are retiring each year.
The Patexia’s Data Science Team has been gathering data from over 300 million USPTO transaction records, with a focus on the allowance rate for patent applications. Over the next few weeks, we hope to release data identifying the top examiners with the highest and lowest allowance rates.