Size Matters: How Law Firm Size Relates to Patent Quality

""Overall, the data shows that, generally, smaller law firms have more patent proofreading errors in their work than large law firms." In an ideal world, every patent law firm, from a small practice drafting 50 patents a year to a large firm drafting thousands a year, would deliver patents for their clients that contain no errors. In reality though, patent drafting is complex and tedious work, and errors inevitably occur."

"As part of the Patent Bots annual quality rankings, we used advanced machine learning software to proofread a year's worth of patents, more than 314,000 issued between April of 2024 and March of 2025. For this study, we focused on three error types - numbering errors, antecedent basis errors, and word support errors. We chose these specific errors because they are objective, can be determined with high accuracy, and any quality patent should not have them."

"Using the proofreading results, each firm with at least 50 issued patents was ranked and assigned a quality score based on the prevalence of errors. Each firm was also categorized by size based on the number of issued patents. The number of firms in each size category is shown in the table below. Small Firms Dominate the Top 10 Rankings Each year as part of the rankings, we publish the names of the top 50 law firms to congratulate them on their excellent work."

Advanced machine learning software proofread more than 314,000 patents issued between April 2024 and March 2025, focusing on numbering, antecedent basis, and word support errors. Firms with at least 50 issued patents received quality scores based on error prevalence and were categorized by firm size. The quality score ranged from 0 to 100. Objective error types were chosen for high-accuracy detection and because quality patents should not contain them. Published rankings list the top 50 firms by quality score, and among the top ten ranked firms, the majority were small firms. Overall data show smaller firms generally have more proofreading errors than larger firms.

Read at IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law