Examiner Stephanie Springer

Grant ratio: 51.3% (74th percentile in Art Unit 1629 among examiners with at least 20 applications). Average office actions per grant: 2.45. Most common rejection type: §103.

Appears inactive Last office action in data: April 2020
Grant ratio 51.3%
Average office actions / grant 2.45
Compared with Art unit About average
Compared with Work group About average
Compared with Technology center About average
Compared with USPTO Very hard

Examiner record

Examiner ID
87631
Primary art unit
1629
Work group
1620
Technology center
1600
Applications
415
Granted applications
213

Save this analysis

Download this examiner report.

Log in / Sign Up to export

Peer comparisons

GroupExaminersAverage grant ratioAverage office actions / grant
Art Unit 22 38.4% 1.91
Group 252 46.0% 1.76
Tech Center 1,373 38.0% 2.02
USPTO 16,475 52.7% 1.98

Office actions per application

Average office actions per application 2.41 1,057 office actions across 438 applications
Applications with office actions 100.0% 438 applications
Office actionsApplicationsShare of applications
No OA observed 0 0.0%
1 OA 143 32.6%
2 OAs 144 32.9%
3 OAs 57 13.0%
4 OAs 53 12.1%
5+ OAs 41 9.4%

Each application is counted once. “5+” includes all higher counts.

Grant history

0.0% 25.0% 50.0% 75.0% 100.0% 2009: 100.0% 2009 2011: 27.6% 2011 2012: 53.8% 2012 2013: 56.4% 2013 2014: 52.7% 2014 2015: 37.5% 2015 2016: 48.8% 2016 2017: 52.3% 2017 2018: 46.3% 2018 2019: 55.1% 2019 2020: 83.3% 2020

Recent ratios may be lower while applications remain pending.

Yearly counts
YearApplicationsGrantsGrant rate
200911100.0%
201129827.6%
2012522853.8%
2013392256.4%
2014552952.7%
201524937.5%
2016432148.8%
2017442352.3%
2018411946.3%
2019693855.1%
2020181583.3%

Rejections by office-action stage

Office-action stageActions observed§101§102§103§112
Action 1 438 0.9% 9.1% 40.0% 8.9%
Action 2 295 0.7% 5.1% 46.4% 18.0%
Action 3 151 0.0% 4.0% 58.9% 13.2%
Action 4 94 0.0% 4.3% 63.8% 11.7%
Action 5 41 0.0% 4.9% 68.3% 7.3%
Action 6 22 0.0% 4.5% 68.2% 9.1%
Action 7 9 0.0% 0.0% 55.6% 22.2%
Action 8 3 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 0.0%
Action 9 2 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 0.0%
Action 10 1 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 0.0%

Section 101 rejections

Last 3 years N/A 0 of 0 office actions
All years 0.6% 6 of 1,057 office actions
Change N/A Percentage points

Last 3 years: 2023-08-28–2026-08-28. All years includes every dated office action in the data.

By year

0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
1.2%
0.0%
0.0%
2014: Alice
0.9%
1.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.9%
2019: PEG
1.6%
0.0%

Each bar is the percentage of office actions with a §101 rejection.

PTAB appeals

Matched decisions: 4. Merits outcomes: 2 affirmed, 1 affirmed in part, and 1 reversed.

Full reversal rate
25.0% 1/4 decisions
Full or partial reversal rate
50.0% 2/4 decisions
Median appeal duration
12.7 months
New grounds of rejection
0
Recent decisions
DecisionApplicationOutcomeIssues
Dec. 13, 2021 15/697,765 Affirmed §103
Dec. 10, 2019 12/341,433 Reversed §112
Sep. 25, 2018 11/673,497 Affirmed in part §103
Jun. 3, 2016 12/309,430 Affirmed §102 · §112

The examiner match uses the last recorded office action before the decision. Reversal rates exclude rehearings, remands, dismissals, and other decisions that did not reach the merits. Data through Aug. 27, 2026.

Job History

These are temporarily preserved for your convenience, but expire quickly for your security. We never save substantive inputs, pasted text, and/or uploaded files.

Jobs will appear here.