Examiner Paul C Mccord

Grant ratio: 61.3% (30th percentile in Art Unit 2656 among examiners with at least 20 applications). Average office actions per grant: 2.30. Most common rejection type: §103.

Recently active Last office action in data: August 2026
Grant ratio 61.3%
Average office actions / grant 2.30
Compared with Art unit Very hard
Compared with Work group About average
Compared with Technology center About average
Compared with USPTO About average

Examiner record

Examiner ID
84589
Primary art unit
2656
Work group
2650
Technology center
2600
Applications
625
Granted applications
383
Examiner phone
(571) 270-3701
Supervisor
Carolyn Edwards
Supervisor phone
(571) 270-7136

Save this analysis

Download this examiner report.

Log in / Sign Up to export

Peer comparisons

GroupExaminersAverage grant ratioAverage office actions / grant
Art Unit 36 67.5% 1.71
Group 210 59.4% 1.87
Tech Center 1,754 57.4% 1.88
USPTO 16,475 52.7% 1.98

Office actions per application

Average office actions per application 2.35 1,471 office actions across 625 applications
Applications with office actions 98.7% 617 applications
Office actionsApplicationsShare of applications
No OA observed 8 1.3%
1 OA 235 37.6%
2 OAs 166 26.6%
3 OAs 84 13.4%
4 OAs 69 11.0%
5+ OAs 63 10.1%

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

Grant history

0.0% 25.0% 50.0% 75.0% 100.0% 2010: 50.0% 2010 2011: 48.3% 2011 2012: 55.4% 2012 2013: 60.9% 2013 2014: 72.1% 2014 2015: 64.0% 2015 2016: 65.7% 2016 2017: 44.4% 2017 2018: 68.1% 2018 2019: 66.7% 2019 2020: 64.7% 2020 2021: 85.1% 2021 2022: 80.6% 2022 2023: 88.6% 2023 2024: 82.4% 2024 2025: 42.5% 2025 2026: 0.0% 2026

Recent ratios may be lower while applications remain pending.

Yearly counts
YearApplicationsGrantsGrant rate
20102150.0%
2011291448.3%
2012563155.4%
2013462860.9%
2014433172.1%
2015503264.0%
2016352365.7%
201718844.4%
2018473268.1%
2019302066.7%
2020342264.7%
2021474085.1%
2022312580.6%
2023353188.6%
2024342882.4%
2025401742.5%
20264800.0%

Rejections by office-action stage

Office-action stageActions observed§101§102§103§112
Action 1 617 0.5% 1.0% 96.1% 0.6%
Action 2 382 1.0% 5.8% 91.4% 0.3%
Action 3 216 0.0% 4.2% 91.2% 0.9%
Action 4 132 0.0% 3.0% 93.9% 1.5%
Action 5 63 0.0% 3.2% 93.7% 1.6%
Action 6 31 0.0% 3.2% 96.8% 0.0%
Action 7 17 0.0% 5.9% 88.2% 0.0%
Action 8 9 0.0% 11.1% 77.8% 11.1%
Action 9 3 0.0% 33.3% 66.7% 0.0%
Action 10 1 0.0% 0.0% 100.0% 0.0%

Section 101 rejections

Last 3 years 1.0% 3 of 289 office actions
All years 0.5% 7 of 1,471 office actions
Change +0.6 pts 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%
0.0%
0.7%
0.0%
2014: Alice
0.0%
0.0%
1.2%
0.0%
2.2%
2019: PEG
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
0.0%
2024: AI examples
2.2%
2025: August memo
0.0%
1.5%

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

PTAB appeals

Matched decisions: 15. Merits outcomes: 10 affirmed, 0 affirmed in part, and 5 reversed.

Full reversal rate
33.3% 5/15 decisions
Full or partial reversal rate
33.3% 5/15 decisions
Median appeal duration
26.7 months
New grounds of rejection
0
Recent decisions
DecisionApplicationOutcomeIssues
Oct. 2, 2025 17/317,702 Affirmed §103 · §112
Nov. 29, 2024 16/791,666 Reversed §103
Mar. 12, 2021 14/802,088 Affirmed §103 · §112
Feb. 6, 2019 14/122,160 Reversed §112
Mar. 27, 2017 12/248,506 Affirmed §103
Sep. 29, 2016 13/259,458 Affirmed §103
Nov. 10, 2015 13/190,221 Affirmed N/A
Oct. 22, 2015 12/248,567 Reversed N/A
Sep. 18, 2015 12/271,529 Affirmed N/A
Jul. 21, 2015 11/010,757 Reversed N/A
Jun. 24, 2015 11/609,194 Affirmed N/A
Apr. 15, 2015 11/644,651 Reversed N/A

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.