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Examiner Susan T Tran

TECH CENTER 1600 · 2 ART UNITS · 1,502 DECIDED APPLICATIONS · LAST ACTION JUL 2026
ALLOWANCE RATE = SHARE OF DECIDED APPLICATIONS (ALLOWED + ABANDONED); PENDING EXCLUDED
OVERALL ALLOWANCE RATE · POOLED ACROSS 2 ART UNITS
61%vs 44% weighted peer average+17 pts

Examiner Susan T Tran has allowed 909 of 1,502 decided applications in Biotechnology and Organic fields.

909 allowed
593 abandoned
Plus 61 applications still pending — not yet decided, so excluded from the rate.
The weighted peer average (44%) is each art unit's average below, weighted by this examiner's applications in it (2 art units).
DATA UPDATED AUGUST 27, 2026
AU 1615 · 61%AU 1618 · 45%
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Outcomes over timemonths since first office action

grantedpendingabandoned
granted 52%abandoned 32%0%50%100%048mo36momonths since first office action
↳ move your cursor across the chart to read any month

Within 36 months of the first office action, 51.53% of Examiner Susan T Tran's applications had been granted and 32.07% had been abandoned. This counts each application from its own first office action, so it covers a different population than the overall allowance rate above, which is measured across decided applications only.

Office actions per allowanceexaminer ● vs weighted peer average ○

Mailed office actions per allowed application
1.92
2.38

Counts mailed office actions on the merits — non-final and final — over this examiner's 909 allowed applications. A first-action allowance counts as zero, and a notice of allowance is not an office action.

The weighted peer average (1.92) blends the per-art-unit averages, weighted by this examiner's allowed applications in each: 1615 (1.91), 1618 (2.49). Each art-unit figure is the unweighted mean of the individual examiner values in that art unit — the peer-typical figure, not the art unit's own ratio.

What the data says.reading this examiner

Susan T Tran's public record spans 2 art units within Technology Center 1600 (Biotechnology and Organic fields). Across more than a thousand decided applications pooled from these art units, her allowance rate is 61%. The allowance rate—the percentage of decided applications (allowed and abandoned) that were allowed—ranges from 45% to 61% across these art units. This range reflects variation in allowance outcomes among the different art units in which she has examined applications, though the pooled figure of 61% represents the overall result across her entire decided caseload in TC 1600.

Reading a pooled record.

This pooled record aggregates applications across multiple art units and reflects past outcomes, not predictions for any individual application. A pooled allowance rate combines different art units' allowance outcomes into a single figure, which provides a broad view of an examiner's historical record across a field of technology. The range shown reflects differences among the specific art units but does not indicate which rate applies to any particular application or art unit. Pooled data describes past dispositions only.

These are aggregate statistics from this examiner's past public record — not predictions about any specific application. The per-art-unit figures below show how the record varies across art units. Our approach to patent prosecution →

Appeals, stage by stagepre-appeal conference, then the Board

STAGE 1 · CONFERENCE18%41%41%34REQUESTSn = 34rates shown
14 of 34 proceed
+ 197 never asked
STAGE 2 · APPEAL52%33%231APPEALSn = 231rates shown
STAGE 1 · CONFERENCE OUTCOME · n = 34
  1. Prosecution reopened1441%
  2. Proceeded to appeal1441%
  3. Allowed at conference618%
STAGE 2 · APPEAL OUTCOME · n = 231
  1. Allowed11952%
  2. Abandoned7733%
  3. Reversed167%
  4. Affirmed104%
  5. Other42%
  6. Affirmed in part31%
  7. Pending21%

Appeal outcomes are counted from USPTO transaction records. Where an examiner has few appeals on record, these figures describe what happened in those cases and should not be read as a rate.

Categories report what happened to the appeal, not the application's final fate — most appeals resolve without a Board decision, and an application whose rejection the Board affirmed can still be granted afterward.

HOW TO READ THESE NUMBERS

Past outcomes, not predictions — identity, attribution, and coverage limits on every figure on this page. Expand for the full list.

These figures describe outcomes already on the public record. They do not predict the outcome of any application and are not legal advice.

Reassigned applications. The USPTO publishes only the examiner currently assigned to an application. Where an application has changed examiners, its entire history — including office actions issued by a predecessor — is attributed here to the current examiner.

Examiner identity. The USPTO publishes no stable examiner identifier. Identity on this site is derived from the examiner's published name together with the art unit. An examiner's record is pooled across the art units they worked in within a technology center. An examiner who has worked in more than one technology center appears here more than once, with their record split between those pages. Two examiners who share a name within a single art unit may be combined into one record.

Comparing across technology centers. Rejection-ground rates (§101, §102, §103, §112) track the subject matter a technology center examines, not examiner severity. Technology Center 1600's rates are comparable with other art units inside TC 1600 and are not comparable with rates from a different technology center.

Comparing examiners. An examiner's rates are shown here against the average for their art unit, which is the closest available comparison because art units group related subject matter. Comparisons get less reliable the further you move from that — between art units, and especially between technology centers, differences in subject matter, applicant population, and prior art make raw rate comparisons misleading. Where an examiner has few applications on record, small changes in the underlying data move the percentages a great deal.

Applications not counted. An application whose currently assigned examiner has moved to a USPTO business unit outside the examining technology centers is absent from this record, together with every office action on it — even where those actions issued while the application sat in an art unit shown here.

Coverage is incomplete. This site does not include every patent application. Applications that may not appear here include those examined in technology centers not listed on this site; those that moved elsewhere within the Office, such as to the Patent Trial and Appeal Board on appeal, to central reexamination, to the Office of Petitions, or to design or plant examination; those never published, including applications filed with a nonpublication request and those abandoned before publication; provisional applications, which are not examined on the merits; anything filed or acted on after the refresh date above; and individual applications or office actions that the USPTO's public services did not return when we retrieved them. That list is illustrative, not exhaustive.

Counts may be low. The individual outcomes described here are matters of public record. The counts and rates computed from them are ours, and they are incomplete. Because of those gaps a count here may be lower than the true figure. We cannot state the size of the difference, and it is not uniform — one examiner's page may be close to complete while another's is materially short. Rates are computed from these same counts, so the uncertainty sits in both the numerator and the denominator. Do not treat a figure here as a count of record; verify against Patent Center, PatentsView, or the Patent Examination Data System before relying on it.

An absent figure. Where a figure is absent, we did not retrieve the underlying records. It does not mean the value is zero, and it does not mean the USPTO holds no such records.

Rejection-ground retrieval. Office-action rejection records are retrieved from the USPTO's office-action dataset in date-bounded batches sized so that each is returned whole in a single response. Retrieved this way, repeated pulls return the same set of records — the retrieval is reproducible. That is a property of our retrieval, not a guarantee that the USPTO dataset itself is complete; the coverage caveats above apply to these figures as to every other.

Compiled from USPTO records as published on August 27, 2026. Prosecution continues after that date and is not reflected here.

The record, art unit by art unit.2 art units

Each section benchmarks this examiner against that art unit's average. Figures are this examiner's own public record within the art unit; the overall rate above pools them.

◈ PRIMARY · ART UNIT 1615
1,523 APPS · 61% ALLOWANCE

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

61%
higher than about 69% of the 75 examiners with published rates in art unit 1615
AU avg 44%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 75 examiners with published rates in art unit 1615; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 77 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 75 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition1,462 decided applications

891 allowed
571 abandoned
Plus 61 applications still pending — not yet decided, so excluded from the rate.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 19.1mo
disposed 38.9mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 20.4 mo, disposed 35.6 mo.

Rejection groundsexaminer ● vs art-unit average ○

REJECTION RATE = SHARE OF THIS EXAMINER'S APPLICATIONS THAT DREW ≥1 OFFICE-ACTION REJECTION IN WHICH THE GROUND APPEARS

Grounds can co-occur, so the four don't sum to 100%. The art-unit figure is the unweighted mean across examiners in the art unit; where an art unit has no computed average for a ground, that row says so rather than showing a comparison.

§101 — Subject-matter eligibility
20%
6%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
57%
61%
§103 — Obviousness
83%
80%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
66%
63%

Interview benefit

Allowance rate for applications with an examiner interview versus without one.

without
46%
+27 pts
with
73%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 818 decided applications with an interview and 644 without.

◈ ART UNIT 1618
40 APPS · 45% ALLOWANCE · LIMITED DATA

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

45%
higher than about 55% of the 31 examiners with published rates in art unit 1618
AU avg 42%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 31 examiners with published rates in art unit 1618; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 32 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 31 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition40 decided applications

18 allowed
22 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 23.9mo
disposed 53.1mo
0
60mo
Art-unit average: first action 24.5 mo, disposed 45.5 mo.

Rejection grounds

No rejection records for this examiner were retrieved from the USPTO office-action dataset. This is an absence of retrieved data, not a rate of zero.

// FAQ

Questions about Examiner Susan T Tran

  • What is Susan T Tran's overall allowance rate?
    61%. This is the percentage of her decided applications (allowed and abandoned) that were allowed, pooled across all art units in her record.
  • How many art units does Susan T Tran examine in?
    2 art units, both within Technology Center 1600 (Biotechnology and Organic fields).
  • Does her allowance rate vary across art units?
    Yes. The allowance rate ranges from 45% to 61% across her art units. This variation reflects differences in outcomes among the specific art units.
  • How large is the sample of decided applications?
    The pooled record covers more than a thousand decided applications across all her art units.
◈ HOW LYNCH LLP CAN HELP

Where to go next.

Lynch LLP represents applicants in patent prosecution before the USPTO. These are general resources about the firm's services — not advice about this examiner or any specific application.

Patent prosecution at Lynch LLP →Application drafting, office-action responses, and prosecution strategy before the USPTO.Appeals and PTAB practice →Appeals, inter partes review, and patent-owner defense before the PTAB.IP portfolio strategy →How a patent portfolio is sequenced and built over a multi-year horizon.Scheduling time with an attorney →Free and paid consultation options across the firm's attorneys.
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METHODOLOGY & DISCLOSURES

Methodology. This page pools every art unit in which Examiner Susan T Tran has a public record within Technology Center 1600. Statistics are computed from publicly available USPTO records, refreshed on a recurring schedule. This page's data was last updated August 27, 2026. The overall allowance rate is total allowed divided by total decided applications (allowed plus abandoned) across all art units — not an average of the per-art-unit rates; pending applications are excluded. Figures are rounded for display. Pooled sample: 1,563 applications.

Rejection rates. Each §-rate is the share of this examiner's applications that drew at least one office-action rejection in which that statutory ground appears; applications with no rejection on record are excluded, and because grounds can co-occur the four do not sum to 100%. The art-unit figure beside each is the unweighted mean of the per-examiner rates across the art unit, published for §101 and §103 only. Beside the overall allowance rate we show a benchmark: for a single-art-unit examiner it is exactly that art unit's average, labeled “art-unit average”; for an examiner spanning several art units it is the “weighted peer average” — the per-art-unit averages, weighted by this examiner's application count in each — labeled distinctly because it is a blended figure, not any single art unit's average. Both are built from the same per-art-unit averages the panels show.

Office actions per allowance. Mailed office actions on the merits — non-final and final — averaged over this examiner's allowed applications. A first-action allowance counts as zero and is included; a notice of allowance is not an office action. The comparison figure is built the same way as the allowance-rate benchmark — from each art unit's own average for this measure — weighted here by this examiner's allowed applications in each art unit, since that is this measure's own denominator. Each art unit's figure is the unweighted mean of its examiners' individual values, so it is the peer-typical figure rather than the art unit's own ratio.

Lynch LLP is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Examiner statistics are derived from publicly available USPTO data.

These statistics describe past examiner behavior and do not predict the outcome of any particular application. Past results do not guarantee future outcomes. Where this page compares an examiner's allowance rate to an art-unit average, that comparison is a factual description of the public record, not a characterization of any individual examiner's conduct or competence.

This page is for general informational purposes and is not legal advice. No attorney-client relationship is formed by viewing it. Consult a registered patent practitioner about your own matter. These figures are reproduced and recombined by Lynch LLP from the USPTO's Patent File Wrapper bulk archive and Open Data Portal APIs; they are not an official USPTO publication, and the USPTO has not reviewed, endorsed, or verified them. If a page here is wrong, tell us at lynchllp.com/contact and we will correct or remove it. Full disclaimers →

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