Earlier this year we published some of the best performing patent firms of 2021 (Patexia Insight 113). Now for the first time, Patexia has evaluated this data at the attorney level. This means we can compare the activity and performance of patent attorneys and rank them based on their work. This week we will review the top 10 most active patent attorneys of 2021.

To calculate this ranking, our Data Science Team had to develop an AI-based tool to read tens of millions of PDF documents available through the USPTO Public Pair website and then using neural networks identify the attorney responsible for each application.

Most of the law firms and especially the larger firms file the application under the name of the law firm. Therefore, the first page of the patent and simple use of application metadata only shows the name of the firm (under Attorney or Agent). But by reading and analyzing the PDF documents, we were able to identify the patent attorney who prepared and signed the application documents. These attorneys are usually the ones who draft the application although in some cases, the attorney in charge of the client may sign the application documents prepared by other attorneys, agents or paralegals.

This analysis is very valuable as for the first time it enables us to evaluate and compare the work performed by attorneys even within the same law firm. This information is useful to our corporate clients as they see which attorney is more efficient, does not need as many extensions or obtains the broadest claims possible with the minimum number of office actions. Our Data Science Team extracts more than 30 different signals for each application including estimated attorney’s fees and USPTO fees.

For this study we limited our data to only US utility patents issued in 2020. In the entire year, the patent office granted more than 350,000 patents. The following bar chart shows the 10 most active patent attorneys based on the number of patents they obtained for their clients in 2020. Judging by the number of patents we identified for each individual (average of more than 2 patents or more per day), we believe at least for the majority of the applications, the top ten attorneys or agents only reviewed and signed the applications prepared by their staff.

As we explained earlier, for each of the applications we have calculated more than 30 unique signals including the number of extensions and interviews. The following table summarizes this for the top ten most active attorneys and agents of 2021 based on the number of issued patents in 2020.

Patent Attorney	Law Firm	Issued Patents (2020)	Extensions (Sum)	Interviews (Sum)
Belinda Y. Lee	Jiang Chyun IP Office	2,441	316	1,306
Joe McKinney Muncy	Muncy Geissler Olds & Lowe	1,619	260	527
Joseph Richard Keating	Keating & Bennett	948	205	416
Donald Ross Studebaker	Studebaker & Brackett	849	142	729
Daniel R. McClure	Mcclure Qualey & Rodack	799	196	431
Pramod Chintalapoodi	Chip Law Group	766	86	172
Travis V. Howell	Oliff	766	246	627
Hosang Lee	Morgan Lewis & Bockius	738	89	537
Todd M. Guise	Oliff	731	257	622
Maki Saitoh	Oblon	721	270	608

We further reviewed the backgrounds and clients for the above attorneys and agents. The most active person, Belinda Lee, is an agent with JC IP Group who is based in Taipei, Taiwan. The firm’s top two clients are TSMC and ITRI.

Six out of 10 people work for small IP boutiques. Travis Howell and Todd Guise both work for Oliff. The firm’s patent business is almost all from foreign clients. The top two clients of the firm are Toyota and Epson. Hosang Lee at Morgan Lewis joined with some other attorneys in 2019. As we covered in Patexia Insight 78, some Asian clients such as Hyundai and Kia Motors moved from McDermott to Morgan Lewis as a result of this lateral hiring. Maki Saitoh is a patent agent with Oblon. The firm’s business is almost exclusively foreign patent prosecution. Its top clients include Japanese companies such as Toshiba, Sony and Ricoh.

As we approach the end of the year, we are excited about 2022 as we plan to publish seven IP reports, covering the best performing and most active attorneys and law firms of 2022 for the following areas:

In the following weeks, we plan to publish estimated IP spending by some of the IP-intensive corporations. Stay tuned…

Note: A version of this article appered on IP Watchdog here.