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Does a high number of non-final office actions indicate a attorney is inexperienced or intentionally dragging on the timeline to make more money?
What is "high?" :Is there anyway to figure out how many office-actions it should take before something is granted?
Is the number of office actions an attorney receives a measure of how good the attorney is?
Competent attorneys would be able to do things right the first time and avoid mistakes that lead to office actions?
At least two questions here -
High number of non-final actions?
Usually office actions become final very soon in the process. Many non-final actions means the examiner has not succeed in even making a basic rejection that holds water even on its face. This means the attorney has successfully pointed out big holes in office actions.
High number of office actions a reflection on attorney?
No - without knowing more it means nothing. Prosecution is a back-and-forth between the attorney and the examiner under the details of the invention. It may be that the examiner has a very very low allowance rate; it could be the attorney doesn’t understand the invention; it could be your invention is marginal and it will take a lot of work to find something allowable.
