While working as a patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) in Art Unit 2121 (artificial intelligence, or AI) I noticed that the typical patent application that I examined had seven method claims, seven apparatus claims, and six computer-readable medium (CRM) claims. In the typical application, the method and apparatus claims were mirrors of each other, and the first five CRM claims were mirrors of claims 1-5 and the last CRM claim combined the subject matter of claims 6 and 7. While examining a typical patent application, I only had to find prior art that taught these seven unique claims to reject the entire patent application. This led me to ponder why applicants are wasting the 13 other claims included with the standard filing fee with mirrored claims. Though best practice is to have multiple statutory categories with mirror claims by the time of allowance for enforceability reasons, there is a potential advantage for the applicant to file fewer mirror claims initially.

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