A recent article co-written by former PTO Director Jon Dudas along with Stepen Maebius and Sean Tu makes a strong statement regarding the rise in restriction requirements:
Restriction practice has clearly grown in the past few years. In 1993, there were only approximately 1,000 restriction requirements in the biotech practice group (out of approximately 32,000 first office actions). However, in 2008, the number of restrictions ballooned to 21,911 restriction requirements in the biotech practice group (out of approximately 42,000 first office actions). Thus, there has been a growth from only 1.5% of patents receiving restriction requirements to over 50% of patents receiving restriction requirements in the biotech practice group.
Squeezing More Patent Protection from a Smaller Budget Without Compromising Quality (2009).
