Examiner Stephen M. Hepperle

Appears inactive Last observed office action: July 2010 (190 months ago).

Examiner Stephen M. Hepperle appears to be about average relative to their peer examiners. Their lifetime grant ratio is 46.0%, they average 1.61 office actions per granted patent, and their rejection profile is dominated by §103.

Difficulty vs AU About Average

Difficulty vs Group About Average

Difficulty vs TC About Average

Difficulty vs USPTO About Average

Average OA / Grant 1.61

Export

Word PDF

Create account to export.

Examiner Details

Observed Examiner Years: 3 years (2008-2010)
Tech Center: 3700 - Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing and Products
Group: 3750 - Fluid Handling and Dispensing

Metrics

Applications Evaluated: 150
Granted Applications: 69
Non-Granted Applications: 81
Avg OA / Grant: 1.61
Last OA Observed: July 2010 (190 months ago)
Art Units Seen: 3700 , 3753
Work Groups Seen: 3700 - 3700

3750 - Fluid Handling and Dispensing

Context Comparison

Scope	Examiners	Lifetime Grant Ratio	Avg OA / Grant
This Examiner	1	46.0%	1.61
Art Unit	63	62.9%	1.70
Group	158	55.5%	1.75
Tech Center	2,632	49.9%	2.01
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 2008; examiner may not yet have been active in the available dataset.
2008	41	25	61.0%
2009	66	34	51.5%
2010	43	10	23.3%
No observed data after 2010; examiner may have gone inactive or moved out of examining work.

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

Rejection Timeline

OA #	Office Actions	§ 101 Percentage	§ 102 Percentage	§ 103 Percentage	§ 112 Percentage
1	150	0.7%	11.3%	68.0%	11.3%
2	76	0.0%	3.9%	75.0%	11.8%
3	24	0.0%	0.0%	91.7%	8.3%
4	9	0.0%	0.0%	88.9%	11.1%

§ 101 Yearly Trend

1.1%

2008

0.0%

2009

0.0%

2010

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