OPLA Petition Decisions

The PTO's Office of Patent Legal Administration (OPLA) responds to petitions that are filed in connection with patents. Petitions and petition decisions are then placed in file histories. 

The problem is that it's difficult to know how the PTO is responding to issues without consulting specific file histories. And because file histories are not searchable in the aggregate, it's difficult to understand how OPLA has ruled in certain circumstances. A few years ago, to promote transparency, the PTO collected and made available more than ten years of OPLA petition decisions. Patdek has organized and OCRed these decisions so you can consider prior PTO rulings made by OPLA. We also attempt to retrieve the file history for a particular decision if you need it, so you can access the underlying petition filed with the PTO, if it covers an issue that you're interested in.