USPTO Examiners Who Issue the Most Office Actions (2023 Analysis)

Having insight into which examiners issue the most OAs can help you decide whether an application is worth pursuing, therefore providing you and your client with the information needed to persist confidently.

And with the impending end of the USPTO’s fiscal year, a huge influx in office actions issued by examiners is coming soon. 

The examiners below are ranked by the average number of OAs issued on applications disposed between 2017-2021. This analysis, conducted in August 2023, excluded supervisory patent examiners and was limited to examiners who reviewed 100 or more plant or utility applications disposed during the desired time frame. Ultimately, we studied data from more than 7,300 examiners and more than 2 million applications.

Half of these examiners actually appeared in both our 2022 and 2021 rankings, and both Cristina O. Sherr and Jay C. Kim were also amongst the top 10 during our first analysis in 2016.

In the chart above, we note each examiner’s current art unit, though that may not necessarily be where they practiced for the entire period studied. Nilforoush and Sherr work in the same art unit, AU 3685, which has the highest average of OAs per application in this time period (3.8 OAs).

Four of the top 10 examiners came from technology center 2100. When we expanded our analysis to the top 20 examiners, TC 2100 remained home to most of the offenders. However, when looking at the top 50, it was TC 3600 that produced the most OAs per application. 

According to Juristat data for this time period, TC 1600 and 1700 are tied for the high average, with 2.5 OAs per application. Comparably, TC 2800 sees the lowest average OAs, with 1.7 per application.

Our top 10 examiners averaged 5.12 office actions per application. The USPTO average for this period was just 2.0 office actions.

Each additional office action brings more tedious work for your team, which can significantly cut into profit margins. With the USPTO’s busiest season upon us, having an efficient system in place to handle office actions is critical.