Examiner Robert E Fennema has allowed 189 of 367 decided applications in Computer Architecture, Software, and Information Security.
Robert E Fennema maintains a public record across hundreds of decided applications in Technology Center 2100 (Computer Architecture, Software, and Information Security). His pooled allowance rate across all art units is 51%, meaning that of all applications with a final disposition (allowed or abandoned), slightly more than half resulted in allowance. His examination work spans 5 art units: 2117, 2118, 2124, 2126, and 2183. The allowance rate ranges from 10% to 70% across these art units, reflecting variation in outcomes depending on the specific art unit and application circumstances.
This record represents a pooled aggregate across multiple art units within TC 2100. The 51% allowance rate describes past outcomes on decided applications and is not a prediction of any specific application. Allowance rates vary substantially by art unit (10% to 70%), so performance in one unit does not represent performance in another. Pooled figures provide context for an examiner's overall examination history but do not determine the outcome of any individual case.
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 →
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.
Primarily examines program control and execution.
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; §102 and §112 carry no art-unit benchmark.
Allowance rate for applications with an examiner interview versus without one.
A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 73 decided applications with an interview and 184 without.
Primarily examines neural-network / biological-model computing, and machine learning.
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; §102 and §112 carry no art-unit benchmark.
Allowance rate for applications with an examiner interview versus without one.
A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 17 decided applications with an interview and 38 without.
Primarily examines control or regulating systems.
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; §102 and §112 carry no art-unit benchmark.
Based on 35 applications — too small a sample to characterize the rejection mix reliably; shown for completeness.
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; §102 and §112 carry no art-unit benchmark.
Based on 21 applications — too small a sample to characterize the rejection mix reliably; shown for completeness.
Primarily examines neural-network / biological-model computing, and machine learning.
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; §102 and §112 carry no art-unit benchmark.
Based on 1 applications — too small a sample to characterize the rejection mix reliably; shown for completeness.
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Methodology. This page pools every art unit in which Examiner Robert E Fennema 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 July 14, 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: 369 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.
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. Full disclaimers →
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