PATLY.AIExaminer difficulty
How examiners in this art unit compare
The spread of examiners on each measure. Click a bar to see who is in it.
3-year grant rate
75%
+12 pts vs tech center 1700 allowed within 3 years of the first action
Allowance rate
77%
+10 pts vs tech center 1700 range 77% to 78%
Rejections before allowance
1.3
−0.5 vs tech center 1700
Months to first action
22.1 mo
+1.5 vs tech center 1700
In plain words
With Art unit 1776, 75% of applications were allowed within three years of the first office action, against 63% for tech center 1700. The first action takes 22.1 months on average.
Timeline
Applications by filing year: drag across the years to study a period
Allowed in green, abandoned in red, pending in grey. The figures above and every chart that can be recomputed by filing year follow the span you pick; the rest are marked all years.
Ask the record
Questions practitioners ask, answered from 18,360 applications
Grant rate from the first action
Share allowed, by months after the first office action
The gold line is this record and the blue line is tech center 1700. The marker is the three-year grant rate.
Outcome simulator
Where you are, what you do next, and the odds that follow
A model of this record’s own transitions: each examiner action, the response to it, and what came next. Thin data borrows from tech center 1700.
Prosecution paths
How prosecution actually unfolds
Every application’s sequence of examiner actions, from the first action to the outcome. Hover a band for the count.
Compared with peers
Against the art unit, the tech center and the USPTO
The same figures for this record, tech center 1700, the tech center and the whole office.
Allowance over time
How fast applications are allowed, or abandoned
Share allowed (gold) and abandoned (red) by month since filing, with pending cases counted only while they are pending.
Rejection fingerprint
What gets rejected, by statute
Share of office actions raising each ground; blue is tech center 1700.
What works
Allowance by strategy used
Allowance rate among decided cases where each move was used at least once, against tech center 1700.
Interviews
Does an interview help?
Allowance with and without an examiner interview, and how often interviews happen.
Odds by round
Chance the next action is an allowance
After the first, second and later rejections.
Response clock
Days from a response to the next action
How long the examiner takes to act once you have answered.
Quarter-end timing
When allowances land in the fiscal quarter
Allowances by week of the USPTO fiscal quarter. An even spread would put 15% in the last two weeks.
Appeals
What happens on appeal
Appeals filed, briefs, examiner’s answers, and how the Board decided.
Trend
Allowance rate by filing year
Is it getting easier or harder? Gold is this record, blue is tech center 1700.
Who files here
Assignees and firms with the most applications
How often each one was allowed with this unit.
Landscape
Examiners across tech center 1700
Each dot is an examiner: allowance rate across, rejections before allowance down, size by caseload. Click one to open it.
Examiners
Every examiner in the unit, ranked by difficulty
| Examiner | Applications | Allowance rate | Difficulty |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ammad Waseem Butt | 2 | 0% | P100 |
| Thomas B McKenzie | 1,175 | 57% | P97 Harder than peers |
| Duane Smith | 209 | 45% | P97 Harder than peers |
| Qianping He | 394 | 65% | P88 Harder than peers |
| Stephen Hobson | 837 | 65% | P86 Harder than peers |
| Virginia Manoharan | 377 | 66% | P85 Harder than peers |
| Amber Rose Orlando | 723 | 66% | P83 Harder than peers |
| Ives J Wu | 189 | 71% | P77 Harder than peers |
| Tiffany Palmer | 64 | 72% | P73 Typical for peers |
| Rachel Marie Slaugovsky | 98 | 69% | P66 Typical for peers |
| Robert J Popovics | 1,068 | 65% | P66 Typical for peers |
| Brit Eliza Anbacht | 512 | 74% | P64 Typical for peers |
| Phillip Y Shao | 766 | 76% | P55 Typical for peers |
| Joubert Glover | 73 | 71% | P55 Typical for peers |
| Sonji Turner | 784 | 76% | P50 Typical for peers |
| Minh Chau Thi Pham | 1,640 | 83% | P44 Typical for peers |
| Pankti R Patel | 201 | 80% | P44 Typical for peers |
| Adam W. Bergfelder | 81 | 78% | P42 Typical for peers |
| Cabrena L Holecek | 532 | 78% | P41 Typical for peers |
| Thomas M Lithgow | 758 | 76% | P39 Typical for peers |
| Christopher P Jones | 1,852 | 80% | P27 Typical for peers |
| Charles S Bushey | 1,415 | 79% | P26 Typical for peers |
| Anthony R Shumate | 1,048 | 80% | P25 Easier than peers |
| Ernest G Therkorn | 512 | 71% | P24 Easier than peers |
| Miriam Nchekwubechu Ezeluomba | 78 | 90% | P19 Easier than peers |
| Tamara Orduna | 68 | 100% | P15 Easier than peers |
| Robert A Hopkins | 2,071 | 87% | P13 Easier than peers |
| Frank M Lawrence Jr | 2,071 | 88% | P10 Easier than peers |
| Richard L Chiesa | 518 | 83% | P9 Easier than peers |
| Douglas J Theisen | 163 | 88% | P8 Easier than peers |