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Examiner Cedric D Johnson

TECH CENTER 2100 · 5 ART UNITS · 700 DECIDED APPLICATIONS · LAST ACTION AUG 2026
ALLOWANCE RATE = SHARE OF DECIDED APPLICATIONS (ALLOWED + ABANDONED); PENDING EXCLUDED
OVERALL ALLOWANCE RATE · POOLED ACROSS 5 ART UNITS
84%vs 62% weighted peer average+22 pts

Examiner Cedric D Johnson has allowed 587 of 700 decided applications in Computer Architecture, Software, and Information Security.

587 allowed
113 abandoned
Plus 38 applications still pending — not yet decided, so excluded from the rate.
The weighted peer average (62%) is each art unit's average below, weighted by this examiner's applications in it (5 art units).
DATA UPDATED AUGUST 27, 2026
AU 2123 · 71%AU 2148 · 93%AU 2129 · 92%AU 2186 · 91%AU 2189 · 82%
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Outcomes over timemonths since first office action

grantedpendingabandoned
granted 80%abandoned 16%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, 80.07% of Examiner Cedric D Johnson's applications had been granted and 15.84% 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
1.84
1.62

Counts mailed office actions on the merits — non-final and final — over this examiner's 587 allowed applications. A first-action allowance counts as zero, and a notice of allowance is not an office action.

The weighted peer average (1.84) blends the per-art-unit averages, weighted by this examiner's allowed applications in each: 2123 (1.99), 2148 (1.90), 2129 (1.72), 2186 (1.73), 2189 (1.63). 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

Cedric D Johnson maintains a pooled allowance rate of 84% across hundreds of decided applications in Technology Center 2100 (Computer Architecture, Software, and Information Security). His record spans five art units: 2123, 2129, 2148, 2186, and 2189. The allowance rate—the percentage of decided applications that were allowed rather than abandoned—reflects the examiner's aggregate output across these art units. The allowance rates across individual art units range from 71% to 93%, indicating variation in outcomes by subject area within TC 2100. This pooled figure describes the examiner's historical record and does not predict outcomes in any specific application.

Reading a pooled record.

A pooled record aggregates the examiner's performance across multiple art units into a single overall statistic. The 84% allowance rate represents decided applications across five distinct subject areas within TC 2100, each of which may have different allowance rates. Aggregate figures describe past outcomes and are correlational snapshots, not predictions of any individual application's fate. The range (71% to 93%) shows that performance varies by art unit; per-art-unit detail appears in the separate section of this page.

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 · CONFERENCE2810REQUESTSn = 10counts only
8 of 10 proceed
+ 12 never asked
STAGE 2 · APPEAL45%18%18%14%22APPEALSn = 22rates shown
STAGE 1 · CONFERENCE OUTCOME · n = 10
  1. Proceeded to appeal8
  2. Prosecution reopened2
STAGE 2 · APPEAL OUTCOME · n = 22
  1. Allowed1045%
  2. Reversed418%
  3. Affirmed418%
  4. Abandoned314%
  5. Affirmed in part15%

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.

Rates are not shown below 20 cases, because a single case would move the figure by more than five percentage points.

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 2100's rates are comparable with other art units inside TC 2100 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.5 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 2123
252 APPS · 71% ALLOWANCE

Primarily examines neural-network / biological-model computing, and machine learning.

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

71%
higher than about 75% of the 76 examiners with published rates in art unit 2123
AU avg 51%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 76 examiners with published rates in art unit 2123; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 80 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 76 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition252 decided applications

179 allowed
73 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 27.9mo
disposed 44mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 29.3 mo, disposed 43.9 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
62%
78%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
63%
54%
§103 — Obviousness
85%
91%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
66%
80%

Interview benefit

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

without
50%
+41 pts
with
91%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 128 decided applications with an interview and 124 without.

ART UNIT 2148
165 APPS · 93% ALLOWANCE

Primarily examines neural-network / biological-model computing, and machine learning.

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

93%
higher than about 83% of the 29 examiners with published rates in art unit 2148
AU avg 65%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 29 examiners with published rates in art unit 2148; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 33 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 29 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition165 decided applications

154 allowed
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 22.5mo
disposed 32.3mo
0
36mo
Art-unit average: first action 29.7 mo, disposed 42.9 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
71%
90%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
69%
63%
§103 — Obviousness
89%
88%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
66%
64%

Interview benefit

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

without
89%
+9 pts
with
98%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 80 decided applications with an interview and 85 without.

ART UNIT 2129
161 APPS · 92% ALLOWANCE

Primarily examines neural-network / biological-model computing, and machine learning.

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

92%
higher than about 92% of the 72 examiners with published rates in art unit 2129
AU avg 65%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 72 examiners with published rates in art unit 2129; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 75 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 72 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition161 decided applications

148 allowed
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 24.4mo
disposed 36.6mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 28.6 mo, disposed 42.1 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
63%
84%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
70%
72%
§103 — Obviousness
76%
72%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
56%
70%

Interview benefit

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

without
84%
+13 pts
with
97%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 100 decided applications with an interview and 61 without.

ART UNIT 2186
103 APPS · 91% ALLOWANCE

Primarily examines computer-aided design (CAD).

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

91%
higher than about 69% of the 78 examiners with published rates in art unit 2186
AU avg 72%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 78 examiners with published rates in art unit 2186; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 84 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 78 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition65 decided applications

59 allowed
Plus 38 applications still pending — not yet decided, so excluded from the rate.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 33.3mo
disposed 38.8mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 23.1 mo, disposed 35.3 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
33%
60%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
65%
56%
§103 — Obviousness
83%
92%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
48%
75%
ART UNIT 2189
57 APPS · 82% ALLOWANCE

Primarily examines computer-aided design (CAD).

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

82%
higher than about 54% of the 59 examiners with published rates in art unit 2189
AU avg 76%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 59 examiners with published rates in art unit 2189; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 62 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 59 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition57 decided applications

47 allowed
10 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 25.6mo
disposed 35.7mo
0
36mo
Art-unit average: first action 26.4 mo, disposed 38.9 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
46%
89%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
64%
72%
§103 — Obviousness
72%
96%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
45%
57%

Interview benefit

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

without
72%
+21 pts
with
93%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 28 decided applications with an interview and 29 without.

// FAQ

Questions about Examiner Cedric D Johnson

  • What is Examiner Johnson's overall allowance rate?
    84% of his decided applications across all five art units were allowed rather than abandoned. This is a pooled figure and does not predict the outcome of any specific application.
  • How many art units does this examiner cover?
    Five: 2123, 2129, 2148, 2186, and 2189, all within Technology Center 2100.
  • Does the allowance rate vary by art unit?
    Yes. The allowance rates across the five art units range from 71% to 93%. Individual art-unit rates are detailed separately on this page.
  • What does 'hundreds of decided applications' mean?
    The examiner's pooled record covers hundreds of applications that were either allowed or abandoned (pending applications are excluded). This magnitude conveys the sample size; exact counts appear in the page's stat boxes.
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METHODOLOGY & DISCLOSURES

Methodology. This page pools every art unit in which Examiner Cedric D Johnson has a public record within Technology Center 2100. 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: 738 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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