Mark Niemann and Patrick Walsh founded FIG. 1 Patents in 2021 with a focus on quality. That focus paid off this spring as FIG. 1 earned the top spot in our 2024 Patent Quality Rankings of patent law firms with 50+ patents issued in the previous year.
FIG. 1, which has used Patent Bots proofreading since 2022, achieved a 99.6 patent quality score across 266 patents obtained. In addition to its top ranking among firms with 50+ patents, the firm also ranked second for USPTO Tech Centers 2100, 2600, and 3600.
Mark and Patrick recently shared their insights on patent
quality and the strategies that led to their top ranking. The interview has
been edited for length and clarity.
Patent Bots: First of all, congratulations on placing
first in the rankings. Why is patent quality such a priority for your firm?
Mark: Thank you! For us, it’s a fundamental mindset. When we established the firm, we believed that a strong emphasis on quality would set us apart from larger firms.
Producing error-free work is an established expectation within our firm. Our talented attorneys are committed to using Patent Bots for proofreading, and every piece of work is also reviewed by a partner who also employs the tool. We don’t send out work unless it meets our standard for quality.
PB: Your firm ranked 25th in 2022 before you even began using Patent Bots. So, obviously, there’s more to quality than technology.
Patrick: Absolutely. Since our founding, one of our pillars has been drafting high quality patents without these errors. The reason we landed in the rankings initially is because we were doing the things that good patent attorneys are trained to do.
Patent Bots helped us rise to that next level and improve from a 90.8 score in 2022 to 99.6 in 2024. When you’re proofreading an application manually, it’s pretty easy to miss one or two little errors. Patent Bots prevents that from happening and helps you get that last little bit closer to error-free.
It's like running spell check on a 50-page document. You see the squiggly lines on your screen and you immediately see that something’s not right in your document.
PB: How do you incorporate your commitment to quality into your sales efforts? Are your clients aware of your high ranking?
Patrick: They’re totally aware of it. We promote our ranking in our marketing materials and we’ve even had potential clients reach out to us after initially seeing us in the rankings.
We don’t hide the fact that we use Patent Bots. When we send
the patent draft to the client, we also often send a PDF of the Patent Bots
proofreading report along with it. Some of our clients have even asked us to
run reports on issued patents that were prepared by other firms to determine
how well they’re positioned with an asset to weigh various portfolio strategies
involving the asset.
PB: We use the phrase Patent Quality Rankings but
there’s obviously more to patent quality than removing errors. How do you view
the idea of patent quality?
Mark: That’s absolutely correct. Our clients' continued business demonstrates their trust in us to deliver value beyond just error-free patents.
They rely on us to draft strong patents with strategic claims. They trust us to position their patents competitively in the market.
So for us, quality extends far beyond merely avoiding errors. Producing error-free work is just the first layer.
That said, if a firm scores low in the Patent Quality
Rankings, what does it say about the deeper substance of that work?
