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Methodology: How our rankings work
We built this year’s Top Patent Firms to highlight where firms truly excel.
Not by technology center, but by the outcomes and industries clients care about most.
Each category stands on its own, awarding a Gold, Silver, or Bronze designator based on their performance in any given category.
Who’s included
We start with firms that filed or disposed of more than 100 applications in a fixed 12-month window, July 8, 2023 to July 8, 2025. To account for the 18-month publication delay, the analysis looks back at a previous timeframe so that we’d have the most accurate and comprehensive dataset possible.
We disclose the exact dates and the data freeze on the rankings page.
Matters are attributed to the firm of record at time of disposition. We standardize name variants and account for mergers and rebrands.
Data foundation: the Juristat database
These awards are powered by Juristat’s proprietary USPTO dataset—the industry’s deepest and cleanest view of prosecution.
- 20+ years of depth. Continuous, clean data back to 2002.
- 10M+ applications. Pending, abandoned, and granted across key variables.
- AI-enhanced metrics. Insights that highlight drivers of compact prosecution and higher allowance rates.
- Proprietary and clean. A curated dataset you can defend to clients and leadership.
This foundation lets us normalize fairly, minimize noise, and assign Gold, Silver, and Bronze designators with confidence.
What we measure
We selected metrics that reflect how clients judge prosecution work: outcomes, speed, efficiency, difficulty, and scale.
Together, they show where a firm converts effort into results, where cycles are tight, and where teams win in harder settings.
They also map cleanly to business development. You can show strengths in interviews, appeals, small-entity work, design filings, and work before difficult examiners, without hiding behind volume alone.
- Normalized allowance rate
Clients care about ends, not just means. Normalization makes comparisons fair when your docket includes tougher examiners.
Normalized Allowance Rate adjusts the raw allowance rate to account for examiner difficulty, providing a fairer comparison across firms. The normalization uses the formula firm_avg + (firm_avg - examiner_avg), which adjusts firm performance relative to the average allowance rate of the examiners they faced. This removes the bias introduced by some firms facing easier or harder examiners.
- Normalized time to allowance
Normalized Time to Allowance adjusts the raw time-to-allowance to account for examiner-specific processing speeds. Using the formula firm_avg + (firm_avg - examiner_avg), this metric isolates firm efficiency from examiner speed variations, providing a fairer comparison of prosecution efficiency across firms that may face faster or slower examiners. - Normalized OAs to allowance
Normalized OAs to Allowance adjusts the raw office actions count to account for examiner-specific tendencies. Using the formula firm_avg + (firm_avg - examiner_avg), this metric removes bias from examiners who systematically issue more or fewer office actions, allowing for fairer cross-firm comparisons of prosecution efficiency. - Extensions
Extensions calculates the average number of time extensions requested per application for each firm. Extensions indicate how firms manage response deadlines during prosecution. Higher extension rates may suggest thorough preparation strategies or resource constraints, while lower rates may indicate faster response capabilities. - Time to response after OA
Time to Response After OA measures the average number of days between receiving an office action and filing the first response. Lower values indicate faster response times, which may reflect efficient internal processes, adequate staffing, or proactive case management. Response timing can impact overall prosecution timeline and client satisfaction. - Top outside counsel
Being chosen and kept by major filers is a market signal. It blends trust, results, and scale in the places where purchase decisions happen.
We looked at the top 100 filing assignees, and using the formula Juristat Analytics’ customers rely on to power their Outside Counsel Scorecard, we identified the top 3 outside counsel firms for those assignees.
That formula is (allowance rate rank) + (average office actions rank) + (pendency rank) + (112b rate) + (response time rank). The firm with the lower overall score will rank higher.
- Top design firm COMING SOON!
Design practice is specialized and deadline-driven. Volume highlights who has the bench, workflows, and client confidence to handle it at pace.
Historically, metrics accounting for allowance rates and office actions do little to distinguish firms practicing primarily in TC 2900, which is why we are relying on volume to dictate this category.
Industry views with CPC mapping
Clients think in industries, not codes. To make category insights comparable across portfolios, we map CPC to defined industry sectors.
CPC subclasses such as H04W (wireless communication networks) or C12N (biotechnology) give us a consistent way to group technologies.
Each firm’s filings are classified using the primary CPC codes on their patents. This supports apples-to-apples benchmarking within sectors like:
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We’re honoring the firms doing excellent work in these focused areas.
How designators work
Breaking from prior years' ranking calculation, for this iteration of Top Patent Firms, we will assign Gold, Silver, and Bronze within each category.
Cut points are based on percentiles among eligible firms. Gold firms are the top third of the cohort, silver the middle third, and bronze the remaining third. Exact ties share the same designator.
Industry, Top Interview Wins, and Top Outside Counsel will recognize all honorees without tiered differentiation.
Data foundation: the Juristat Analytics database
These awards are powered by Juristat’s proprietary USPTO dataset, the industry’s most comprehensive and accurate view of prosecution. It provides us with the scale and rigor to compare firms fairly and assign Gold, Silver, and Bronze ratings with confidence.
- 20+ years of depth. Continuous, clean data back to 2002.
- 10M+ applications. Pending, abandoned, and granted across key variables.
- AI-enhanced metrics. Insights that surface what drives compact prosecution and higher allowance rates.
- Proprietary and clean. Curated data you can defend to clients and leadership.
This foundation lets us normalize fairly and minimize noise across categories.
New! Top Patent Firms Innovative Leader Award
The Top Patent Firms Innovative Leader award honors firms pushing patent practice forward. We look for teams that embrace technology, modern workflows, and responsible change that clients can feel in outcomes, speed, and predictability.
An internal panel of Juristat experts from multiple teams conducts a qualitative review each year. The review is holistic and judgment-based. There is no fee and no application required. We do not run a scorecard or a formula.
We consider public and verifiable signals of innovation and operational progress, such as:
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Visible adoption of analytics, automation, or responsible AI
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Documented process improvements (e.g., routing, response cadence, QC)
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Evidence of client impact (faster cycles, fewer surprises, clearer collaboration)
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Thought leadership or knowledge sharing that benefits the profession
These are contextual inputs, not pass/fail criteria.
We recognize a limited cohort each year based on the panel’s review window. The size may vary year to year.
Disclaimer: What Top Patent Firms is, and what it isn’t
Juristat’s “Top Patent Firms” rankings reflect observed USPTO prosecution outcomes calculated according to the methodology described on this site. The rankings and related materials are provided for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Juristat does not endorse, recommend, or sponsor any law firm, attorney, or service provider.
Results are based on historical data and may not reflect current or future performance. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. Users should conduct their own independent evaluation before making any hiring or engagement decisions.
In short, no single measure reflects every dimension of legal service. These categories do not assess strategy, pricing, client service, or matter complexity. Use Top Patent Firms to identify strengths, then dig deeper in Juristat for ongoing monitoring and analysis.
FAQs
Learn more about our process in ranking patent law's Top Firms:
Firms with more than 100 applications filed or disposed of in the fixed 12-month window. We disclose the coverage dates in the methodology section.
Gold, Silver, and Bronze are assigned within each category split by thirds among eligible firms. Exact ties share the same designator.
We map CPC subclasses (e.g., H04W, C12N) to defined sectors. Industry CPC classes are outlined on their respective pages.
The "featured firms" section on each page is a rotating designation assigned randomly. If you don't see your firm, check back later!
For the 2025 awards, we changed the way we are awarding firms. Top Patent Firms now recognizes performance where clients feel it—by industry and by outcome. Instead of a single blended rank, we award Gold, Silver, and Bronze in specific categories like appeals, interviews, efficiency, and work before difficult examiners. It’s clearer, more actionable, and still backed by Juristat’s proprietary USPTO dataset.
No! Firms do not have to use Juristat, nor do they need to apply to participate in the rankings. The Top Patent Firm rankings are powered by our industry-leading database of more than 10 million patent applications. This is the very same database that makes our tools so robust.
Design patents tend to have higher-than-average allowance rates, which can throw off the analysis. Comparing a firm that does all utility patents with a firm that has even one design patent would put the latter at an advantage. As you noticed, we also skipped ranking firms in TC 2900, where most/all the design patents are assigned.
Similarly, we exclude foreign priority applications to level the playing field for the analysis as foreign priority applications generally have a higher allowance rate.
To qualify for inclusion, a firm must have filed or disposed of a minimum of 100 applications during the specified time period. This provides a dataset of an appropriate size to evaluate performance metrics.
Keen observers may notice that previous iterations of the rankings (2024) set the threshold at 50 applications per year in the specific technology center. For 2025, we expanded our analysis beyond the tech center and, to maintain our rankings' significance, increased the qualifying number to 100 patents.
No, Juristat's rankings consider both volume and performance. We based the awards on how well a firm performed over a 12-month period.
No, allowance rate is just one way to measure a firm’s success at the USPTO. Juristat's new Top Patent Firms honors consider performance in a wide variety of metrics and industries.
This list (and all past iterations) are powered by our database of more than 10 million patent applications at the USPTO. Our database includes global and foreign law firms to the extent they prosecute applications under their own name in the United States. Many foreign firms choose to file applications through another U.S. firm and may not be included in this analysis.
If your firm did not rank, it could be for a number of reasons.
- You may not have been one of the top-performing firms at the USPTO for the key metrics we examined.
- Your firm may have been excluded because you didn’t have 100+ filings or dispositions during this time period. Keep in mind, this analysis only considers published applications and excludes design and foreign priority. Credit is given to the firm at disposition as listed on the final application. Or,
- Each edition of Top Patent Firms is based on data available at that time. These lists went through extensive review and quality assurance before publishing. Keep in mind, however, Juristat is constantly reprocessing to pull in new data. This gives our clients access to the most robust patent database on the market. It also means that specific metrics tend to change slightly over time as more information is added into the dataset. Juristat is constantly acquiring data from multiple sources, including Patent Center, Global Dossier, PEDS, the weekly Publication and Issuance Gazetteers, the Assignments data feed, and more.
While we can’t share the raw data or rank for every firm, this data was all compiled using Juristat Analytics. Our powerful search and filtering capabilities, along with the ability to quickly export large datasets, make in-depth analysis like this possible. Additionally, our side-by-side intelligence reports make it easy to compare metrics from firms, companies, centers, art units, classes, and more. If you'd like to see how our reporting works, set up a call with us.
There’s no call for participation or entry fee associated with our Top Patent Firms lists. These rankings (and all past iterations) are powered by our industry-leading database of more than 10 million patent applications. If you'd like to discuss ways to identify opportunities and improve prosecution outcomes, schedule a consultation with our team
No. Rankings reflect observed USPTO outcomes under the stated methodology. They are informational only and not legal advice. Juristat does not endorse or recommend firms. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.
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