Almost 20% of patent applicants receive an office action within nine months of filing.

Tim Palmer helped me to grab some data for a new paper on patent office statistics. Here are some preliminary results:

Using data from Series 10 (Serial No. 10/xxx,xxx) with filing dates from October 2001 through May 2005, I created a simple cumulative percentage table showing the expected time delay for a first office action.  As can be seen, around seven percent of cases receive a first OA within the first six months, and the median delay is between one and two years.  Of course, this table is slightly skewed because the October 2001 start date does not allow for delays of more than four years.

DELAY AFTER FILING UNTIL FIRST OFFICE ACTION

Three Months	1%
Six Months	7%
Nine Months	18%
One Year	32%
Two Years	82%
Three Years	96%

Comments

[Dennis Crouch]

Of course, this data is more than a 'bit skewed' if you are looking for how long your newly filed application will take to receive a substantive first office action. In the next few installments we'll peel away the onion of continuations, restrictions, and the four-year cutoff to give a better picture of where you stand. -- DDC

[Tim]

This data is also skewed for the reason that technology centers vary based on docket and backlog.

Data reflecting the average filing date of applications receiving a first OA in the last 3 months is updated weekly in the Official Gazette, but it's not that easy to find ... here's the most recent data:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/week43/OG/TOC.htm#ref23

The Official Gazette online: http://www.uspto.gov/web/patents/patog/

[Dennis Crouch]

Here is more data: http://patentlaw.typepad.com/patent/2005/07/listing_of_expe.html.