Examiner Brian Szmal

Appears inactive Last observed office action: February 2016 (124 months ago).

Examiner Brian Szmal appears to be about average relative to their peer examiners. Their lifetime grant ratio is 71.3%, they average 2.25 office actions per granted patent, and their rejection profile is dominated by §103 and occasional §101 rejections.

Difficulty vs AU About Average

Difficulty vs Group About Average

Difficulty vs TC About Average

Difficulty vs USPTO About Average

Average OA / Grant 2.25

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Examiner Details

Observed Examiner Years: 9 years (2008-2016)
Tech Center: 3700 - Mechanical Engineering, Manufacturing and Products
Group: 3730 - Sheet Container Making, Package Making, Apparel, and Tool Driving

Metrics

Applications Evaluated: 529
Granted Applications: 377
Non-Granted Applications: 152
Avg OA / Grant: 2.25
Last OA Observed: February 2016 (124 months ago)
Art Units Seen: 3736
Work Groups Seen: 3730 - Sheet Container Making, Package Making, Apparel, and Tool Driving

Context Comparison

Scope	Examiners	Lifetime Grant Ratio	Avg OA / Grant
This Examiner	1	71.3%	2.25
Art Unit	32	52.1%	2.19
Group	288	51.1%	2.22
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	46	21	45.7%
2009	62	33	53.2%
2010	78	51	65.4%
2011	79	55	69.6%
2012	65	51	78.5%
2013	67	59	88.1%
2014	92	76	82.6%
2015	38	29	76.3%
2016	2	2	100.0%
No observed data after 2016; examiner may have gone inactive or moved out of examining work.

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

Rejection Timeline

OA #	Office Actions	§ 101 Percentage	§ 102 Percentage	§ 103 Percentage	§ 112 Percentage
1	529	4.3%	10.4%	67.5%	14.2%
2	319	5.3%	11.9%	62.1%	18.2%
3	166	10.2%	9.0%	61.4%	15.7%
4	88	9.1%	6.8%	65.9%	14.8%
5	41	14.6%	2.4%	68.3%	12.2%
6	16	12.5%	0.0%	62.5%	18.8%
7	4	25.0%	0.0%	75.0%	0.0%
8	2	50.0%	0.0%	50.0%	0.0%

§ 101 Yearly Trend

2014: Alice

2.2%

2008

6.7%

2009

3.5%

2010

10.2%

2011

10.6%

2012

8.2%

2013

3.5%

2014

16.3%

2015

0.0%

2016

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