This is an update for the Top Patent Blogs post that I published back in 2011. In my opinion, rankings are important, but they do not necessarily reflect the actual value that a specific blog adds to the inventing community. There are obviously many factors that contribute to the value and success of a blog.The blogs from the original 2011 list that are still operational have, in their own way, helped others to understand the patent system more either locally in their own community or to the larger inventing community. Blogging has become much more sophisticated since it first started. Each blogger develops his/her own voice to capture an audience with their blog. To each one of these enduring blogs, great job for having staying power and the valuable contributions you offer to the invention community.In preparing for this Top Patent Blogs post, I reached out to the writers (patent attorneys and patent professor) from the Top Patent Blogs post and asked them a few questions about why they maintain their blogs. Not all responded but from those that did, I got a sense that their blogs are more than just another means of attracting new business. For example, a few use blogging as a reason for reading cases and briefing them to keep up with the current state of patent law. The reasons varied far and wide. To summarize or to get to the essence of their differentiation, I asked them how they felt their blog was different from the others on the list. For their answers, see the Comment by Blog Manager column below in the ranking list.To the new bloggers out there, keep up the good work. Our opinions are being heard both locally and globally because of your blogs. If you would like to be included in this list, please contact me through my blog at OC Patent Lawyer.Back in 2011, I ranked the top patent blogs based on the results from Page Rank and Alexa Rank. This time around, the rankings are based on the traffic rankings from three different sources, namely, www.similarweb.com, www.alexa.com, and www.spyfu.com. These three sources rank the traffic to each of the blogs using a slightly different method with slightly different results. Because of this, I thought that the fairest way to deal with the variance was to rank the blogs using a weighted average of the rankings from these three sites.Without further ado. Drum roll please.In relation to the relative traffic, back when patent blogging began to get popular, the rankings race for number one was, in my opinion, between IPWatchdog and PatentlyO. The ABA Journal maintained a Blawg 100 list, and these two blogs always made this list and have since been inducted into the ABA Blawg Hall of Fame. The starburst shows that, since then, IPWatchdog has pulled well ahead of PatentlyO.According to the traffic data, IPWatchdog has really pulled away from the pack. They have about 3 times the traffic of PatentlyO. Congratulations!