Examiner Darlington Ly

Examiner Darlington Ly appears to be more difficult than most of their art unit, group, tech center, and USPTO peers. Their lifetime grant ratio is 87.3%, they average 1.29 office actions per granted patent, and their rejection profile is dominated by §112 and elevated §112 usage.

Difficulty vs AU Very Hard

Difficulty vs Group Very Hard

Difficulty vs TC Very Hard

Difficulty vs USPTO Very Easy

Average OA / Grant 1.29

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Examiner Details

Observed Examiner Years: 15 years (2012-2026)
Phone: (571) 272-2617
Predicted Supervisor: Philip S. Hyder
Supervisor Phone: (571) 272-2621
Tech Center: 2900 - Designs
Group: 2900-WG - 2900-WG

Metrics

Applications Evaluated: 1,726
Granted Applications: 1,507
Non-Granted Applications: 219
Avg OA / Grant: 1.29
Last OA Observed: January 2026 (3 months ago)
Art Units Seen: 2914 , 2917
Work Groups Seen: 2900-WG - 2900-WG

Context Comparison

Scope	Examiners	Lifetime Grant Ratio	Avg OA / Grant
This Examiner	1	87.3%	1.29
Art Unit	29	95.5%	1.22
Group	461	95.1%	1.19
Tech Center	486	94.9%	1.20
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 2012; examiner may not yet have been active in the available dataset.
2012	27	27	100.0%
2013	128	127	99.2%
2014	153	151	98.7%
2015	194	187	96.4%
2016	228	191	83.8%
2017	225	172	76.4%
2018	228	195	85.5%
2019	149	123	82.6%
2020	115	105	91.3%
2021	139	117	84.2%
2022	52	43	82.7%
2023	45	38	84.4%
2024	31	27	87.1%
2025	11	4	36.4%
2026	1	0	0.0%

1,507 family-cache-validated grants; 0 OA-only grant signals.

Rejection Timeline

OA #	Office Actions	§ 101 Percentage	§ 102 Percentage	§ 103 Percentage	§ 112 Percentage
1	1,726	0.0%	1.7%	1.0%	88.1%
2	429	0.0%	1.6%	2.8%	82.8%
3	55	0.0%	1.8%	1.8%	89.1%
4	14	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	92.9%
5	2	0.0%	0.0%	0.0%	100.0%