Examiner Stephen Sparks
Examiner Stephen Sparks appears to be very difficult relative to their art unit, group, tech center, and USPTO peers. Their lifetime grant ratio is 26.3%, they average 3.64 office actions per granted patent, and their rejection profile is dominated by ยง103.
Difficulty vs AU
Very Hard
Difficulty vs Group
Very Hard
Difficulty vs TC
Very Hard
Difficulty vs USPTO
Very Hard
Average OA / Grant
3.64
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Examiner Details
- Observed Examiner Years
- 6 years (2016-2021)
- Tech Center
- 3700 - Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing and Products
- Group
- 3770 - Medical and Surgical Instruments, Treatment Devices, and Supplies
Metrics
- Applications Evaluated
- 95
- Granted Applications
- 25
- Non-Granted Applications
- 70
- Avg OA / Grant
- 3.64
- Last OA Observed
- January 2021 (62 months ago)
Context Comparison
| Scope | Examiners | Lifetime Grant Ratio | Avg OA / Grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| This Examiner | 1 | 26.3% | 3.64 |
| Art Unit | 49 | 36.5% | 2.02 |
| Group | 269 | 49.9% | 2.08 |
| 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 2016; examiner may not yet have been active in the available dataset. | |||
| 2016 | 2 | 0 | 0.0% |
| 2017 | 17 | 2 | 11.8% |
| 2018 | 21 | 5 | 23.8% |
| 2019 | 28 | 10 | 35.7% |
| 2020 | 26 | 8 | 30.8% |
| 2021 | 1 | 0 | 0.0% |
| No observed data after 2021; examiner may have gone inactive or moved out of examining work. | |||
25 family-cache-validated grants; 0 OA-only grant signals.
Rejection Timeline
| OA # | Office Actions | § 101 Percentage | § 102 Percentage | § 103 Percentage | § 112 Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 135 | 0.0% | 36.3% | 63.7% | 0.0% |
| 2 | 108 | 1.9% | 24.1% | 73.1% | 0.9% |
| 3 | 80 | 2.5% | 13.8% | 80.0% | 3.8% |
| 4 | 48 | 0.0% | 22.9% | 75.0% | 2.1% |
| 5 | 25 | 4.0% | 20.0% | 76.0% | 0.0% |
| 6 | 8 | 0.0% | 0.0% | 100.0% | 0.0% |
| 7 | 4 | 0.0% | 25.0% | 50.0% | 25.0% |
§ 101 Yearly Trend
2019: PEG
Each bar shows the share of this examiner's observed office actions in that year that included a § 101 rejection.