Examiner Christopher Busch

Grant ratio: 25.1% (71st percentile in Art Unit 3681 among examiners with at least 20 applications). Average office actions per grant: 2.80. Most common rejection type: §103.

Recently active Last office action in data: August 2026
Grant ratio 25.1%
Average office actions / grant 2.80
Compared with Art unit Very easy
Compared with Work group About average
Compared with Technology center Very hard
Compared with USPTO Very hard

Examiner record

Examiner ID
87412
Primary art unit
3681
Work group
3680
Technology center
3600
Applications
395
Granted applications
99
Examiner phone
(571) 270-7953
Supervisor
Waseem Ashraf
Supervisor phone
(571) 270-3948

Save this analysis

Download this examiner report.

Log in / Sign Up to export

Peer comparisons

GroupExaminersAverage grant ratioAverage office actions / grant
Art Unit 21 16.3% 3.12
Group 285 28.7% 2.80
Tech Center 2,381 46.2% 2.12
USPTO 16,475 52.7% 1.98

Office actions per application

Average office actions per application 3.19 1,261 office actions across 395 applications
Applications with office actions 98.7% 390 applications
Office actionsApplicationsShare of applications
No OA observed 5 1.3%
1 OA 105 26.6%
2 OAs 102 25.8%
3 OAs 44 11.1%
4 OAs 48 12.2%
5+ OAs 91 23.0%

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

Grant history

0.0% 25.0% 50.0% 75.0% 100.0% 2010: 0.0% 2010 2011: 10.0% 2011 2012: 30.8% 2012 2013: 17.6% 2013 2014: 5.3% 2014 2015: 0.0% 2015 2016: 4.5% 2016 2017: 3.4% 2017 2018: 20.0% 2018 2019: 47.1% 2019 2020: 51.7% 2020 2021: 50.0% 2021 2022: 41.4% 2022 2023: 50.0% 2023 2024: 25.9% 2024 2025: 30.0% 2025 2026: 0.0% 2026

Recent ratios may be lower while applications remain pending.

Yearly counts
YearApplicationsGrantsGrant rate
2010100.0%
201110110.0%
201213430.8%
201317317.6%
20141915.3%
20153200.0%
20162214.5%
20172913.4%
201820420.0%
2019341647.1%
2020291551.7%
2021301550.0%
2022291241.4%
2023261350.0%
202427725.9%
202520630.0%
20263700.0%

Rejections by office-action stage

Office-action stageActions observed§101§102§103§112
Action 1 390 4.6% 11.5% 82.8% 0.3%
Action 2 285 52.3% 4.2% 40.7% 1.8%
Action 3 183 54.6% 0.5% 44.8% 0.0%
Action 4 139 59.7% 0.7% 38.1% 1.4%
Action 5 91 63.7% 1.1% 33.0% 2.2%
Action 6 66 66.7% 1.5% 31.8% 0.0%
Action 7 37 64.9% 0.0% 32.4% 2.7%
Action 8 28 71.4% 0.0% 28.6% 0.0%
Action 9 16 68.8% 0.0% 31.3% 0.0%
Action 10 14 64.3% 0.0% 28.6% 0.0%

Section 101 rejections

Last 3 years 38.9% 88 of 226 office actions
All years 41.7% 526 of 1,261 office actions
Change -2.8 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%
6.3%
11.0%
16.0%
2014: Alice
29.0%
50.0%
65.8%
49.0%
60.5%
2019: PEG
63.3%
41.2%
41.7%
48.8%
53.7%
2024: AI examples
44.4%
2025: August memo
33.3%
35.1%

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

PTAB appeals

Matched decisions: 23. Merits outcomes: 19 affirmed, 1 affirmed in part, and 3 reversed.

Full reversal rate
13.0% 3/23 decisions
Full or partial reversal rate
17.4% 4/23 decisions
Median appeal duration
15.5 months
New grounds of rejection
1
Recent decisions
DecisionApplicationOutcomeIssues
Jan. 28, 2026 16/891,568 Affirmed §101
Dec. 18, 2025 17/830,412 Affirmed §101 · §103
Aug. 29, 2024 17/258,325 Affirmed §101 · §103
Jul. 3, 2024 17/830,783 Affirmed §101
Jun. 24, 2024 17/687,031 Affirmed §101
Sep. 21, 2023 17/256,059 Affirmed §101 · §112
Mar. 18, 2022 15/363,984 Affirmed §101 · §103
Jan. 24, 2022 15/645,184 Affirmed §101
Jun. 29, 2021 14/418,239 Affirmed §101 · §112
Nov. 12, 2020 13/551,599 Affirmed §101 · §103 · §112
Jun. 30, 2020 13/970,084 Affirmed §101 · §102 · §103
Dec. 12, 2019 14/177,098 Reversed §101 · §102 · §103

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.