Bar chart showing number of United States utility patents issued by year, from 1976, with indicators of issue dates of Patent Nos. 5,000,000, 6,000,000 ... 11,000,000
Data source for Version 4 is USPTO (calendar years):Data source through 2020: U.S. Patent Activity / Calendar Years 1790 to the Present. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) (2021). Archived from the original on April 29, 2023.
PTO source states:"Annual activity is determined based on the calendar year.
Notes:
(a) - "Patent Grants to Foreign Residents" data include inventions, plants, and designs
(b) - counts of patent grants from 1836 to 1842 include design patents
(c) - data for 1836 include both the patents granted in that year prior to the effective date of the 1836 Patent Law (July 4, 1836) and those granted in that year after that date
(d) - data for 1836 include 599 patents issued prior to July 4, the effective date of the 1836 patent law
(e) - "Patents", as used in this column, refers to "patents for inventions", also known as "utility" patents
Data Sources
(a) - recent statistics are obtained from the report, U.S. Patent Statistics Report, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Patent Technology Monitoring Team, and from the USPTO TAF database
(b) - many of the older statistics are obtained from the Technology Assessment and Forecast Seventh Report, March 1977, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office"Uploader determined values for 2021 and 2022 by obtaining Google Patent listings of patents issued on the first Tuesday of 2021, 2022, and 2023, and performing simple subtraction of lowest-value patent numbers. (All U.S. patents have issue dates on Tuesdays.)
Data source for versions 1, 2 and 3: Based on work of Author: U.S. law professor Dennis Crouch:— For 1976–2014 data: Crouch, Dennis. USPTO Breaks New Ground with 300,000 Patents Issued This Fiscal Year. Patently-O (September 30, 2014). Archived from the original on April 29, 2023.
— For 2009–2022 data: Crouch, Dennis. Patents Issued Per Year. Patently-O (September 21, 2022). Archived from the original on December 8, 2022.
— For issue dates of patents 5,000,000 through 11,000,000: Milestones in U.S. patenting. USPTO.gov. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (May 11, 2021). Archived from the original on March 22, 2023.Crouch's data is said to be based on Patent Office fiscal years (ending September 30).
Incidentally, calendar-year figures going back to 1790 can be found at https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/h_counts.htm though as of 29 April 2023, the data was only current through 2020.
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RCraig09