Examiner Sally Merkling
Examiner Sally Merkling appears to be about average relative to their peer examiners. Their lifetime grant ratio is 62.7%, they average 2.69 office actions per granted patent, and their rejection profile is dominated by ยง103.
Difficulty vs AU
About Average
Difficulty vs Group
About Average
Difficulty vs TC
About Average
Difficulty vs USPTO
About Average
Average OA / Grant
2.69
Export
Word
PDF
Create account to export.
Examiner Details
- Observed Examiner Years
- 17 years (2009-2025)
- Tech Center
- 1700 - Chemical and Materials Engineering
- Group
- 1790 - Food, Analytical Chemistry, Sterilization, Biochemistry, Electrochemistry
Metrics
- Applications Evaluated
- 472
- Granted Applications
- 296
- Non-Granted Applications
- 176
- Avg OA / Grant
- 2.69
- Last OA Observed
- June 2025 (9 months ago)
Context Comparison
| Scope | Examiners | Lifetime Grant Ratio | Avg OA / Grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| This Examiner | 1 | 62.7% | 2.69 |
| Art Unit | 28 | 50.5% | 2.19 |
| Group | 307 | 37.1% | 2.11 |
| Tech Center | 1,713 | 47.3% | 2.14 |
| USPTO | 16,116 | 54.8% | 1.98 |
Grant Timeline
Shaded region marks the last two observed years, where grant outcomes may lag due to recency.
| Year | Applications | Granted | Grant Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| No observed data before 2009; examiner may not yet have been active in the available dataset. | |||
| 2009 | 39 | 12 | 30.8% |
| 2010 | 44 | 21 | 47.7% |
| 2011 | 59 | 32 | 54.2% |
| 2012 | 35 | 27 | 77.1% |
| 2013 | 55 | 41 | 74.5% |
| 2014 | 25 | 16 | 64.0% |
| 2015 | 38 | 24 | 63.2% |
| 2016 | 22 | 15 | 68.2% |
| 2017 | 37 | 25 | 67.6% |
| 2018 | 37 | 23 | 62.2% |
| 2019 | 38 | 30 | 78.9% |
| 2020 | 34 | 22 | 64.7% |
| 2021 | 7 | 7 | 100.0% |
| No observed data for 2022-2024. | |||
| 2025 | 2 | 1 | 50.0% |
| No observed data after 2025; examiner may have gone inactive or moved out of examining work. | |||
296 family-cache-validated grants; 0 OA-only grant signals.
Rejection Timeline
| OA # | Office Actions | § 101 Percentage | § 102 Percentage | § 103 Percentage | § 112 Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 474 | 0.8% | 18.6% | 66.0% | 2.3% |
| 2 | 348 | 0.3% | 14.7% | 73.3% | 3.4% |
| 3 | 176 | 0.0% | 10.8% | 80.1% | 3.4% |
| 4 | 109 | 0.9% | 10.1% | 78.0% | 0.9% |
| 5 | 58 | 0.0% | 5.2% | 79.3% | 3.4% |
| 6 | 31 | 0.0% | 3.2% | 87.1% | 3.2% |
| 7 | 13 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 84.6% | 7.7% |
| 8 | 4 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 50.0% | 50.0% |
| 9 | 2 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
§ 101 Yearly Trend
2014: Alice
2019: PEG
2024: AI Examples
Each bar shows the share of this examiner's observed office actions in that year that included a § 101 rejection.