A newly-released policy brief from the IP Policy Institute at the University of Akron School of Law reaffirms the finding from a 2024 Sunwater Institute report that overall patent quality in the United States is high.
The Sunwater Institute study found that the USPTO grants invalid patents only 7% of the time — an impressively low rate. This finding directly challenges the narrative that the system is flooded with low-quality patents.
The study also revealed that the quality of patents issued by the USPTO compares favorably with those granted by other leading patent offices around the world.
Opponents of patent rights continue to propagate the false claim that patent quality in America is in decline. This research tells the real story: the U.S. patent system produces high-quality results and outperforms many international counterparts in accuracy and rigor.
While the system excels at avoiding bad patents, it can improve in another key area: making sure it doesn’t reject valid ones. According to the study, the USPTO erroneously denies legitimate patent applications roughly 18% of the time. These false rejections create a significant obstacle to American innovation, economic progress, and national security.
The study’s insights have an important role to play in reshaping public perceptions of patent quality, as well as encouraging policymakers to focus reform efforts on rejecting fewer valid patent claims.
Check out our issue brief for more takeaways, or read the study in full here.