In order to speed up issuance, the patent may be filed as a non-provisional application right away. This gets the application into the queue at the patent office first.
Even though the examiners are supposed to take the applications in order, every examiner has some discretion on which ones they handle. In order to get the application through quickly, the patent attorney should draft the application with the examiner in mind.
First and foremost, the application should be written in clear, concise, and understandable language. Easy to understand figures that are well labeled and demonstrate the idea are key. Excessive length of the specification is a hindrance to the examiner: get to the point and keep it short.
Second, the claims should be written to make the examiner’s job easier. Keep the number of claims down to as few as possible (20 or fewer, but preferably 1 independent claim if you can), and also ensure they are very accurate, use reasonable language, and do not have a lengthy preamble. Some people ensure that the independent claims are at least a hand’s breadth in length, but I don’t subscribe to that technique.
Remember that you can always get some claims allowed and then file a continuation application to go after broader claims in the future.
There is the possibility that Petitions to Make Special might help speed up the process. Anecdotal evidence has not always proven this to be true, with some practitioners claiming that Petitions to Make Special actually delay the process. My guess is that in some technologies with long pendencies, Petitions to Make Special would help, but in art units with short pendencies, the delay associated with the petition may be greater than the speed with which the examiner would have taken up the application. I have no evidence for this, but it is only my gut feel.
There has been talk about rule changes that may allow you to file a Petition to Make Special where the applicant performs a search and explains why the invention is different from all the prior art. The carrot is that allowance for the application is guaranteed in a certain period of time. This is a potential disaster for any practitioner, as any slight mischaracterization, misinterpretation, or misrepresentation of the prior art could potentially be interpreted as inequitable conduct on the part of the practitioner. In a doomsday scenario, any issued patent may be invalidated and the practitioner may loose his privileges to practice patent law and would probably never be able to get malpractice insurance again. From my standpoint, there is nobody in their right mind that would take that kind of risk, and I would never consider such an option for anyone other than an independent inventor who writes and prosecutes his own patents.
