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Patent examiner

Heather K Barnwell

No recent actionsArt unit 3781Tech center 370053 applicationsTypical for peers

Art unit3781 76 examiners
Tech center3700
Active in the record2017 to 2022, 5 years
Applications examined53 29 allowed, 24 abandoned, 0 pending
Main domainsA61F, A61M, A61L
DifficultyP44 in the tech center, P45 of all examiners
3-year grant rate
55%
−1 pts vs art unit 3781 allowed within 3 years of the first action
Allowance rate
55%
−6 pts vs art unit 3781 range 41% to 67%
Rejections before allowance
1.8
−0.2 vs art unit 3781
Months to first action
26.1 mo
+1.9 vs art unit 3781

In plain words

With Heather K Barnwell, 55% of applications were allowed within three years of the first office action, against 56% for art unit 3781. Heather K Barnwell is typical of the art unit, in the 45th percentile of all examiners by difficulty (the 100th is the hardest). The first action takes 26.1 months on average.

Easier45th percentileHarder
Difficulty percentile across all examiners

Examiner difficulty

How hard is this examiner?

Every examiner with enough decided cases, from the hardest to the easiest; the dashed line is this examiner. Switch the comparison set or the measure, and click a bar to see who is in it: the examiners you might have drawn instead.

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 53 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 art unit 3781. 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 art unit 3781.

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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.

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Compared with peers

Against the art unit, the tech center and the USPTO

The same figures for this record, art unit 3781, the tech center and the whole office.

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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.

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Rejection fingerprint

What gets rejected, by statute

Share of office actions raising each ground; blue is art unit 3781.

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After a response

Which grounds this examiner withdraws

How often each ground is gone from the next action once you have responded to it.

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What works

Allowance by strategy used

Allowance rate among decided cases where each move was used at least once, against art unit 3781.

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Interviews

Does an interview help?

Allowance with and without an examiner interview, and how often interviews happen.

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Odds by round

Chance the next action is an allowance

After the first, second and later rejections.

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Response clock

Days from a response to the next action

How long the examiner takes to act once you have answered.

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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.

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Appeals

What happens on appeal

Appeals filed, briefs, examiner’s answers, and how the Board decided.

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Trend

Allowance rate by filing year

Is it getting easier or harder? Gold is this record, blue is art unit 3781.

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Who files here

Assignees and firms with the most applications

How often each one was allowed with this examiner.

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Cited art

References this examiner relies on most

From the rejections and the examiner’s citation forms.

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Landscape

Where Heather K Barnwell sits in tech center 3700

Each dot is an examiner: allowance rate across, rejections before allowance down, size by caseload. Click one to open it.

Applications

Every application examined

ApplicationTitleFiledStatusRejectionsRCEsTo 1st action
16652281TAMPON APPLICATOR2020-03-30Allowed105.5 mo
16649245TAMPON APPLICATOR2020-03-20Allowed205.3 mo
16719727METHODS AND DEVICES FOR INCREASING AQUEOUS DRAINAGE OF THE EYE2019-12-18Allowed104.3 mo
15404621Method and apparatus for adaptive signal processing2012-01-10Allowed1012.0 mo
15671819Composition and method for controlled release2015-02-11Abandoned4123.0 mo
15349143Distributed ledger transaction verification2018-03-12Allowed3020.0 mo
15423243Thermal management of battery assemblies2021-04-13Pending2117.0 mo
15639352Machine learning model for anomaly detection2012-05-14Allowed1014.0 mo
15400153Wireless power transfer coil arrangement2015-06-15Abandoned4125.0 mo
15427983Catalyst for selective hydrogenation2018-07-16Allowed3022.0 mo
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