My Quest for Ten Million

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) will issue the 10 millionth utility patent sometime in the summer of 2018. This milestone of human ingenuity conceivably exceeds even the Founding Fathers’ expectations when they established a patent system in the U.S. Constitution to “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” Obviously, the significance of the 10 millionth patent has nothing to do with the content or quality of the patent itself, but is simply of note because of the auspicious nature of the award number. Other US patents awarded auspicious numbers are listed below.

US Patents with Auspicious Numbers:

For anyone contemplating participation in this particular lottery, I regret to inform you that it is too late to buy your ticket! The USPTO typically provides a final disposition (allowance or final rejection) on a patent application within 12 months of the prioritized status being granted. So basically, only submissions from mid-2017 and earlier are entered into this drawing. 

So far in calendar year 2018, I have taken two shots at attaining the 10M milestone. 

Patton; W. F., Yarmoluk; S. M., Pande; P., Kovalska; V., Dai; L., Volkova; K., Coleman; J., Losytskyy; M., Ludlum; A. and, Balanda; A. (April 3, 2018) “Dyes and compositions, and processes for using same in analysis of protein aggregation and other applications”. US Patent No. 9,932,479.

Howitz, K.T., Zhang, Z., Kisielewski, A., Dale, E. and Patton, W.F. (May 8, 2018) “Compounds and methods for detection of enzymes that remove formyl, succinyl, methyl succinyl or myristoyl groups from ε amino lysine moieties.” U.S. Patent No. 9,963,734

My most recent attempt at reaching 10M was granted a mere 36,266 patents too early, but I estimate that I still have at least three additional horses in the race, based upon my other patent applications submitted in 2017. I may also still have a few laggards from previous years’ submission that are candidates for the prize. 

In fact, I only became aware that I was a contender for the race to 10M yesterday (May 15th), when GE Reports published a story about Dr. John Nelson, a molecular biologist at GE’s Global Research Center in Niskayuna, New York, who has been very closely monitoring the run-up to 10M and trying to time his written responses to the USPTO in such a manner as to have his patent awarded on June 19, 2018, the date that he projects the 10 M mark will be achieved. https://www.ge.com/reports/waiting-game-us-patent-no-10-million-coming-soon-ge-researcher-using-science-hit-big/ His most recently awarded patent was US Patent No. 9,957,548, which missed the mark by 42,452 awards. 

Typically, the USPTO issues about 6,000 new patents a week, always on Tuesdays — with on average 31 patents per week being awarded to inventors at GE. GE may have bought more lottery tickets for this particular game than the rest of us, but that doesn’t make it the sure bet.

Come on 10 M!!

June 7th update for those following the incredibly fascinating US patent lottery. 

(Is it only me? )

The number of the last patent issued, as of 5 June 2018, appears to be US patent No. 9,992,920 [Method for accurate population of a circuit carrier to ZKW GROUP GMBH ].

So, we are still a tad shy of 10,000,000!

Next Tuesday, June 14th should be the big day!!

More exciting than the Super Bowl, right?