First Office Action Estimator
Check current estimates on how long it will take for a first office action on a patent application by entering an Art Unit or Class and Subclass associated with a current or potential application.
Resources
If you already have application and serial number, you can also check estimates by logging into Private PAIR.
- See the Patents Data Visualization Center for an overall average First Office Action estimate
- Index to the U. S. Classification System (USPC)
- Classification Main Menu (this includes a search function across the classication taxonomy)
- Overview of the U. S. Classification System
Definitions
- First Office Action
- An Office action is a document written by a patent examiner in the course of examination of a patent application. The Office action may cite prior art and gives reasons why the examiner has allowed (approved) the applicant's claims, and/or rejected the claims. A first Office action on the merits (FAOM) is typically the first substantive examination of the application.
- Group Art Unit
- A working unit responsible for a cluster of related patent art (documents). Staffed by one supervisory patent examiner (SPE) and a number of patent examiners who determine patentability on applications for a patent.
Examples: 1611, 2439 or 3788 - Class/Subclass
- There are over 400 classes in the USPC. Each class has a title descriptive of its
subject matter, is identified by a class number, and is subdivided into a number of subclasses. Each subclass also has a descriptive title, is identified by a subclass number, and the subclass number is an integral number that may contain a decimal portion and/or alpha characters. A complete identification of a subclass requires both the class and subclass number and any alpha or decimal designations.
Examples: 424/401 identifies Class 424, Subclass 401
