Examiner William Paul Plefka

Appears inactive Last observed office action: February 2025 (15 months ago).

Examiner William Paul Plefka appears to be very difficult relative to their art unit, group, tech center, and USPTO peers. Their lifetime grant ratio is 22.2%, they average 2.25 office actions per granted patent, and their rejection profile is dominated by §103 and occasional §101 rejections.

Difficulty vs AU Very Hard

Difficulty vs Group Very Hard

Difficulty vs TC Very Hard

Difficulty vs USPTO Very Hard

Average OA / Grant 2.25

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Examiner Details

Observed Examiner Years: 3 years (2023-2025)
Tech Center: 2100 - Computer Architecture Software and Information Security
Group: 2120 - Artificial Intelligence

Metrics

Applications Evaluated: 18
Granted Applications: 4
Non-Granted Applications: 14
Avg OA / Grant: 2.25
Last OA Observed: February 2025 (15 months ago)
Art Units Seen: 2127
Work Groups Seen: 2120 - Artificial Intelligence

Context Comparison

Scope	Examiners	Lifetime Grant Ratio	Avg OA / Grant
This Examiner	1	22.2%	2.25
Art Unit	27	53.9%	1.95
Group	316	48.6%	1.98
Tech Center	1,706	55.9%	2.19
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 2023; examiner may not yet have been active in the available dataset.
2023	2	1	50.0%
2024	15	3	20.0%
2025	1	0	0.0%
No observed data after 2025; examiner may have gone inactive or moved out of examining work.

4 family-cache-validated grants; 0 OA-only grant signals.

Rejection Timeline

OA #	Office Actions	§ 101 Percentage	§ 102 Percentage	§ 103 Percentage	§ 112 Percentage
1	32	9.4%	0.0%	90.6%	0.0%
2	22	4.5%	0.0%	95.5%	0.0%
3	9	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%
4	4	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%	0.0%

§ 101 Yearly Trend

2024: AI Examples

12.5%

2023

5.8%

2024

0.0%

2025

Each bar shows the share of this examiner's observed office actions in that year that included a § 101 rejection.