Grant Rates Remain Flat in Financial Services Patent Subclasses

The grant rates for patents in the financial services subclasses for the first few months of 2015 more or less match the rates from the last few months of 2014. As the graph below shows, the grant rates took a severe dive from June to September, after the Alice decision. The grant rates have not rebounded, and if anything have continued to dwindle slightly.

On an annualized basis, the grant rates have retreated to about where they were in the 2005-08 period. The graph below illustrates the annual grant rate in the financial subclasses since 2002, with 2015 pro-rated based on the first 20 weeks of the year.

Everything is relative.  While the rates are significantly lower than a year ago, they still match and exceed the rates from the early 2000s.  There was a lot of hand wringing and ink spilled at that time about the proliferation of financial services patents.  So, the bottom line is that grant rates are greatly reduced from where they have been, but financial services patents are still alive.