Examiner Benjamin L Hanks
Examiner Benjamin L Hanks appears to be very difficult relative to their art unit, group, tech center, and USPTO peers. Their lifetime grant ratio is 17.5%, they average 3.03 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
3.03
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Examiner Details
- Observed Examiner Years
- 7 years (2020-2026)
- Phone
- (571) 270-5080
- Predicted Supervisor
- Shahid Merchant
- Supervisor Phone
- (571) 270-1360
- Tech Center
- 3600 - Transportation, Electronic Commerce, Construction, Agriculture, Licensing and Review
- Group
- 3620 - Business Methods: Incentive Programs, POS, Inventory, Accounting, Shipping
Metrics
- Applications Evaluated
- 166
- Granted Applications
- 29
- Non-Granted Applications
- 137
- Avg OA / Grant
- 3.03
- Last OA Observed
- March 2026 (2 months ago)
Context Comparison
| Scope | Examiners | Lifetime Grant Ratio | Avg OA / Grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| This Examiner | 1 | 17.5% | 3.03 |
| Art Unit | 62 | 22.5% | 2.89 |
| Group | 362 | 27.1% | 2.85 |
| Tech Center | 2,337 | 48.0% | 2.11 |
| 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 2020; examiner may not yet have been active in the available dataset. | |||
| 2020 | 15 | 2 | 13.3% |
| 2021 | 23 | 2 | 8.7% |
| 2022 | 24 | 10 | 41.7% |
| 2023 | 27 | 8 | 29.6% |
| 2024 | 27 | 7 | 25.9% |
| 2025 | 35 | 0 | 0.0% |
| 2026 | 15 | 0 | 0.0% |
29 family-cache-validated grants; 0 OA-only grant signals.
Rejection Timeline
| OA # | Office Actions | § 101 Percentage | § 102 Percentage | § 103 Percentage | § 112 Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 164 | 2.4% | 11.6% | 81.7% | 0.0% |
| 2 | 114 | 18.4% | 19.3% | 58.8% | 0.0% |
| 3 | 71 | 31.0% | 14.1% | 49.3% | 0.0% |
| 4 | 48 | 31.3% | 6.3% | 58.3% | 0.0% |
| 5 | 20 | 25.0% | 5.0% | 55.0% | 0.0% |
| 6 | 11 | 45.5% | 0.0% | 45.5% | 0.0% |
| 7 | 4 | 50.0% | 0.0% | 25.0% | 0.0% |
| 8 | 3 | 66.7% | 0.0% | 0.0% | 0.0% |
§ 101 Yearly Trend
2019: PEG
2024: AI Examples
2025: Aug. Memo
Each bar shows the share of this examiner's observed office actions in that year that included a § 101 rejection.