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
71%
+4 pts vs tech center 3700 allowed within 3 years of the first action
Allowance rate
76%
+6 pts vs tech center 3700 range 76% to 77%
Rejections before allowance
1.9
+0.2 vs tech center 3700
Months to first action
20.3 mo
−0.4 vs tech center 3700
In plain words
With Art unit 3731, 71% of applications were allowed within three years of the first office action, against 67% for tech center 3700. The first action takes 20.3 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 27,917 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 3700. 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 3700.
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 3700, 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 3700.
What works
Allowance by strategy used
Allowance rate among decided cases where each move was used at least once, against tech center 3700.
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 3700.
Who files here
Assignees and firms with the most applications
How often each one was allowed with this unit.
Landscape
Examiners across tech center 3700
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Samuel T Hughes | 17 | 6% | P99 |
| Lian Huang | 4 | 0% | P99 |
| Marie C Black | 10 | 30% | P86 |
| Elizabeth Houston | 401 | 35% | P86 Harder than peers |
| Tin Duc Nguyen | 356 | 63% | P86 Harder than peers |
| Patrick B Fry | 534 | 54% | P83 Harder than peers |
| Lucas M Paez | 100 | 66% | P78 Harder than peers |
| Socrates L Boutsikaris | 164 | 57% | P77 Harder than peers |
| Mary C Hibbert | 353 | 66% | P77 Harder than peers |
| Kevin D Everage | 239 | 59% | P76 Harder than peers |
| Sameh Tawfik | 1,168 | 63% | P74 Typical for peers |
| Amy T Lang | 48 | 52% | P72 Typical for peers |
| Mobeen Ahmed | 431 | 63% | P71 Typical for peers |
| Eduardo R Ferrero | 511 | 63% | P71 Typical for peers |
| Sarah Webb Aleman | 682 | 65% | P69 Typical for peers |
| Julie Ann Szpira | 582 | 71% | P67 Typical for peers |
| Rachel S Highland | 441 | 69% | P60 Typical for peers |
| Scott Andrew Howell | 177 | 68% | P60 Typical for peers |
| Chelsea E. Stinson | 486 | 72% | P59 Typical for peers |
| David G Shutty | 419 | 70% | P52 Typical for peers |
| Christopher Robin Kim | 88 | 64% | P51 Typical for peers |
| Robert Franklin Long | 1,382 | 76% | P51 Typical for peers |
| David C Eastwood | 504 | 71% | P50 Typical for peers |
| Joshua G Kotis | 650 | 74% | P47 Typical for peers |
| Andrew M Tecco | 981 | 70% | P41 Typical for peers |
| Daniel Jeremy Leeds | 470 | 74% | P39 Typical for peers |
| Thomas M Wittenschlaeger | 710 | 75% | P38 Typical for peers |
| Katie L Gerth | 380 | 77% | P36 Typical for peers |
| Tanzim Imam | 684 | 73% | P36 Typical for peers |
| Chinyere J Rushing-Tucker | 652 | 77% | P34 Typical for peers |
| Gloria R Weeks | 1,002 | 77% | P31 Typical for peers |
| Dariush Seif | 724 | 74% | P31 Typical for peers |
| Valentin Neacsu | 427 | 75% | P30 Typical for peers |
| Xavier A Madison | 452 | 78% | P28 Typical for peers |
| Eyamindae Chossan Jallow | 957 | 81% | P24 Easier than peers |
| Veronica Martin | 512 | 84% | P24 Easier than peers |
| Praachi M. Pathak | 419 | 80% | P19 Easier than peers |
| Linda J Hodge | 326 | 88% | P18 Easier than peers |
| Jonathan Wade Miles | 893 | 79% | P17 Easier than peers |
| Lucas E A Palmer | 652 | 83% | P17 Easier than peers |
| Nicholas E Igbokwe | 501 | 82% | P16 Easier than peers |
| William Everett Elliott III | 1 | 100% | P15 |
| Himchan Song | 367 | 89% | P12 Easier than peers |
| Nathaniel C Chukwurah | 1,864 | 88% | P11 Easier than peers |
| Jacob A Smith | 576 | 86% | P9 Easier than peers |
| Andrew Carl Ardolino | 1 | 100% | P4 |
| James E Van Loon | 1 | 100% | P4 |
| Bashir F Alsaidi | 3 | 100% | P3 |