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Patent examiner

Sow Fun Hon

ActiveArt unit 1782Tech center 1700802 applicationsTypical for peers

Art unit1782 42 examiners
Tech center1700
Active in the record2007 to 2026, 19 years
Applications examined802 420 allowed, 311 abandoned, 71 pending
Main domainsG02F, G02B, C09D
DifficultyP31 in the tech center, P32 of all examiners
3-year grant rate
55%
+4 pts vs art unit 1782 allowed within 3 years of the first action
Allowance rate
57%
level with art unit 1782 range 54% to 61%
Rejections before allowance
2.1
level with art unit 1782
Months to first action
22.3 mo
−0.6 vs art unit 1782

In plain words

With Sow Fun Hon, 55% of applications were allowed within three years of the first office action, against 52% for art unit 1782. Sow Fun Hon is typical of the art unit, in the 32nd percentile of all examiners by difficulty (the 100th is the hardest). The first action takes 22.3 months on average.

Easier32nd 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 802 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 1782. 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 1782.

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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 1782, 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 1782.

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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 1782.

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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 1782.

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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 Sow Fun Hon sits in tech center 1700

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
19571573Bioplastics And Method Of Formation2026-03-19Pending102.2 mo
19300036HIGH-HUMIDITY GAS AND VAPOR BARRIER ARTICLES2025-08-14Pending313.0 mo
19208656CARBOXYMETHYL HEMICELLULOSE COMPOSITE FILMS AND PREPARATION METHODS THEREOF2025-05-15Abandoned002.4 mo
15141865Method and apparatus for adaptive signal processing2012-01-10Allowed1012.0 mo
15815350Composition and method for controlled release2015-02-11Abandoned4123.0 mo
15585845Distributed ledger transaction verification2018-03-12Allowed3020.0 mo
15699010Thermal management of battery assemblies2021-04-13Pending2117.0 mo
15570725Machine learning model for anomaly detection2012-05-14Allowed1014.0 mo
15738683Wireless power transfer coil arrangement2015-06-15Abandoned4125.0 mo
15475270Catalyst for selective hydrogenation2018-07-16Allowed3022.0 mo
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