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[itscoldoutside]

Is there any way to determine an Examiner's allowance rate?  I have noticed some posts on usptoexaminers.com about specific numeric allowance rates.


I have had several applications handled very poorly by two Examiners in AU 3657.  I am getting the feeling that this may be one of those art units in which the SPE is trying to cover his butt by not allowing anything, and thus after the claims are differentiated over all available prior art the Examiners are forced to make convoluted obviousness rationale until you appeal.

[PatentDave]

I don't know about finding allowance rates, but your description regarding SPEs entrenching themselves in ridiculous rejections drafted by underlings seems to be a daily occurrence in my world as well.   Is there any way to get an allowance without an appeal these days?  Seriously, I would like to know.

[itscoldoutside]

It seems to me that it is isolated pockets of Examiners.  I get lots of allowances from some art units, and none from others.

[Examinerguy]

I could write an essay on your comments. To keep it short.

Primarys in general write the worst rejections because they think that little is allowable. A lot of primarys are burnt out and don't do a proper search which leads to these bad actions. In fact, some primarys allow things they do not understand simply because they don't understand it and don't have time to understand. In general, SPE's have forgotten the art (or placed in an art that they never knew) and depend on primarys for an allowance opinion.

Therefor, a lot of the allowance issues fall on the back of the primary examiner.

The last point I want to make is that the mechanical arts seem to have a much lower allowance rate than the EE/CE/CS arts. However, the mechanical arts have less RCEs.

[PatentDave]

Examinerguy, thank you very much for that insight.  As a practitioner who never worked as an Examiner, the examining corp and its operations behind closed doors seems a bit mystical like the man behind the curtain in the Wizard of Oz.

[itscoldoutside]

Talking about which category of Examiners writes the worst actions is a bit like talking about which type of goose craps the most.  It seems like every variety of goose spends the entire day crapping.  Ever seen a plot of land after a flock of geese spent the day there?

There are some Examiners who do a good job, but they are few and far between.  Most Examiners who have an intellectual curiosity and a high work ethic end up leaving to become attorneys or agents.


In my experience, primarys are FAR more likely to allow something simply because they don't have to justify their work to a supervisor.  Of course, that doesn't mean they are actually doing a good job, it just means they are allowing things. 

When I was an Examiner, the only time I ever had to talk to my SPE was when I wanted to allow something.  Then it would be a 30 minute meeting, which inevitably led to my SPE telling me to go back and look again.  After I looked again, if I came up with a couple more pieces of art but made a rationale explanation of why I didn't think they could be fairly applied, then he would sometimes agree to allow something.  The point being, for Examiners that don't have signatory authority, it is much much easier just to reject everything.  Most of the SPEs won't even read your OAs unless there is allowable subject matter.  And for a SPE, there is absolutely no benefit in allowing something.  It is no skin off your ass to tell the Examiner to go back and search again, to tell them more subclasses to search, and to continue to do this until the Examiners learn that you just aren't going to allow anything and they might as well not even ask.


I think if there were a chart you could look at to find the collective allowance rate in each art unit, it would become very apparent which SPEs take this approach.  My guess is that AU 3657 is one of them.

[PatentDave]

And go figure why the Board is backlogged on appeals significantly worse than ever before.

[klaviernista]

Is there any way to determine an Examiner's allowance rate?  I have noticed some posts on usptoexaminers.com about specific numeric allowance rates.

An examiner's true allowance rate (in %) would equate to: (number of notices of allowances generated/total number of applications examined) * 100%.

Because an examiner's docket is not publicly available information, the best data you could generate on your own (i.e., without information provided by the PTO) would be based on published applications.  You would still be faced with the very tedious task of identifying which published applications a particular examiner examined, as the examiner's name is not listed on the front page of a PG-Pub.  One way to go about it would be to identify which classes the examiner examines and use the USPTO search tools to pull up all PG-Pubs in each class.  You could then use pair to pull the application information, which will identify the examiner.  After identifying all the published applications considered by the examiner, you have another tedious (though relatively simple) task, namely finding out which of those published applications ultimately issued as a patent.  Just do an examiner search using the PTO search tool.  Divide the number of issued patents by the number of publised applications (all post 2001), and you will get a rough idea of the examiner's allowance rate.


Or you could be ballsy and just ask the examiner to let you know his current actions per disposal rating, and total number of allowances.  The PTO provides those types of reports to examiners frequently, but they are rarely shared.

[Simpletown]

Digging up an old thread from interest. I have actually asked this before and have had answers from 3% to 70+%. So there is a variance.  Has anyone else tried a FOIA request to try and obtain the information?

[klaviernista]

Digging up an old thread from interest. I have actually asked this before and have had answers from 3% to 70+%. So there is a variance.  Has anyone else tried a FOIA request to try and obtain the information?

Haven't tried a FOIA request, and I'm not sure whether it would work. 

There is definitely a variance, but that is to be expected as one examiner will typically examine technology in a very different art area than another examiner.  So a meaningful comparison cannot be made, for example, between the allowance rate of an examiner who examines the marital aid art and the allowance rate of an examiner who examines the gaming machine art.  To determine whether or not a particular examiner's allowance rate was anomolous, you would need to compare his stats to those of other examiners in his same art area (and preferably the same art unit).

[NJ Patent1]

"Boliven" by Cambridge IP purports to allow searching by Examiner name.  But it appears you have to have a full subscription to take full advantage of the search features.  If it works,  one might compare the number of issued patents to the number of published applications under a particular Examiner and get at least a rough idea.   Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Cambridge IP.  Other search sites may have similar capabilities. 

[klaviernista]

"Boliven" by Cambridge IP purports to allow searching by Examiner name.  But it appears you have to have a full subscription to take full advantage of the search features.  If it works,  one might compare the number of issued patents to the number of published applications under a particular Examiner and get at least a rough idea.   Disclaimer: I have no financial interest in Cambridge IP.  Other search sites may have similar capabilities. 

Only issue with that is that PG-Pubs do not list the examiner.

[NJ Patent1]

Klaviernista:  Noted.  All I can say is that they claim that their database is searchable for Examiner name.  Maybe using data "mined" from PAIR?  I never tried seaching under "examiner" bcs options are limited in the freebe version.  IMO, such stats are interesting, but of limited practical utility anyway.  For example, would a RCE be worth it, or am I just dealing with an Examiner who appears to be as stubborn as a mule? 

[klaviernista]

Klaviernista:  Noted.  All I can say is that they claim that their database is searchable for Examiner name.  Maybe using data "mined" from PAIR?  I never tried seaching under "examiner" bcs options are limited in the freebe version.  IMO, such stats are interesting, but of limited practical utility anyway.  For example, would a RCE be worth it, or am I just dealing with an Examiner who appears to be as stubborn as a mule? 

Understood.  It would be interesting to know more about that functionality.

FWIW, the web based search tools on the PTO website also permit searching by examiner name.  Simply type "exa/*" or "exp/*" where * is the examiner's last name. 

[dablueman]

Is there any way to determine an Examiner's allowance rate? 

As an examiner I can tell you that there is no way for someone outside the PTO to know an examiner's true allowance rate. Even if you could associate my name with published applications, a statistically significant percentage of my docket are unpublished applications.

Even within the PTO examiner stats are tracked for the fiscal year. I can tell you what my allowance rate is (with and without RCEs counting as abandonments), but it's not likely that you'll ever really be able to accurately estimate an examiner's allowance rate. Allowance rates vary wildly between examiners, even within the same art unit. I do know that some large firms keep files on individual examiners, but I doubt they track allowance rates.