LYNCH·LLP
HOME/EXAMINERS/TC 3600/MARC R BURGESS
◈ FIND AN EXAMINER, ART UNIT, OR APPLICATION #
◈ USPTO PATENT EXAMINER STATISTICS

Examiner Marc R Burgess

TECH CENTER 3600 · 5 ART UNITS · 560 DECIDED APPLICATIONS · LAST ACTION AUG 2026
ALLOWANCE RATE = SHARE OF DECIDED APPLICATIONS (ALLOWED + ABANDONED); PENDING EXCLUDED
OVERALL ALLOWANCE RATE · POOLED ACROSS 5 ART UNITS
39%vs 62% weighted peer average−23 pts

Examiner Marc R Burgess has allowed 220 of 560 decided applications in Transportation, Construction, Electronic Commerce, Agriculture, National Security and License & Review.

220 allowed
340 abandoned
Plus 85 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 3643 · 47%AU 3615 · 34%AU 3647 · 36%AU 3642 · 23%AU 3666 · 15%
◈ PATENT PROSECUTION

Lynch LLP represents applicants in patent prosecution before the USPTO.

Talk to the attorney who would handle the matter.

Book a 30-minute consultation →

Outcomes over timemonths since first office action

grantedpendingabandoned
granted 38%abandoned 55%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, 38.31% of Examiner Marc R Burgess's applications had been granted and 54.6% 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
1.57
1.72

Counts mailed office actions on the merits — non-final and final — over this examiner's 220 allowed applications. A first-action allowance counts as zero, and a notice of allowance is not an office action.

The weighted peer average (1.57) blends the per-art-unit averages, weighted by this examiner's allowed applications in each: 3643 (1.57), 3615 (1.39), 3647 (1.63), 3642 (1.51), 3666 (1.77). 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

Marc R Burgess maintains a public record across hundreds of decided applications in Technology Center 3600 (Transportation, Construction, Electronic Commerce, Agriculture, National Security and License & Review). His pooled allowance rate stands at 39% of decided applications across 5 art units. The allowance rate varies across his art units, ranging from 15% to 47%. This spread reflects the examiner's record across the different art units within TC 3600 in which he has substantial activity. The figures presented describe his historical record and do not constitute a prediction for any specific application.

Reading a pooled record.

This record aggregates data across multiple art units within TC 3600, pooling allowed and abandoned applications to calculate an overall allowance rate. The 39% allowance rate is a historical average across all decided applications in the examiner's record, not a forecast of any particular case. The range of 15% to 47% across art units illustrates variation in the examiner's pooled record; aggregate figures describe past outcomes only and are not predictive.

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 · CONFERENCE111214REQUESTSn = 14counts only
12 of 14 proceed
+ 19 never asked
STAGE 2 · APPEAL18%15%9%31%27%33APPEALSn = 33rates shown
STAGE 1 · CONFERENCE OUTCOME · n = 14
  1. Proceeded to appeal12—
  2. Allowed at conference1—
  3. Prosecution reopened1—
STAGE 2 · APPEAL OUTCOME · n = 33
  1. Affirmed1031%
  2. Abandoned927%
  3. Allowed618%
  4. Reversed515%
  5. Affirmed in part39%

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 3600's rates are comparable with other art units inside TC 3600 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 3643
318 APPS · 47% ALLOWANCE

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

47%
higher than about 43% of the 53 examiners with published rates in art unit 3643
AU avg 52%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 53 examiners with published rates in art unit 3643; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average, computed across all 54 examiners in the unit — a broader group than the 53 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition318 decided applications

148 allowed
170 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 22.6mo
disposed 36.9mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 17 mo, disposed 30.9 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
6%
9%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
68%
66%
§103 — Obviousness
86%
94%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
67%
65%

Interview benefit

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

without
43%
+14 pts
with
57%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 77 decided applications with an interview and 241 without.

◈ ART UNIT 3615
120 APPS · 34% ALLOWANCE

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

34%
higher than about 3% of the 30 examiners with published rates in art unit 3615
AU avg 83%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 30 examiners with published rates in art unit 3615; 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 30 published marks, so it can sit apart from them.

Disposition35 decided applications

12 allowed
23 abandoned
Plus 85 applications still pending — not yet decided, so excluded from the rate.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 29mo
disposed 35.8mo
0
36mo
Art-unit average: first action 24.2 mo, disposed 35 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
7%
6%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
69%
58%
§103 — Obviousness
78%
98%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
61%
80%
◈ ART UNIT 3647
114 APPS · 36% ALLOWANCE

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

36%
higher than about 8% of the 36 examiners with published rates in art unit 3647
AU avg 64%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 36 examiners with published rates in art unit 3647; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average.

Disposition114 decided applications

41 allowed
73 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 22.5mo
disposed 41.4mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 19.7 mo, disposed 32.2 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
9%
17%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
79%
68%
§103 — Obviousness
89%
97%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
75%
90%

Interview benefit

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

without
30%
+15 pts
with
45%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 44 decided applications with an interview and 70 without.

◈ ART UNIT 3642
60 APPS · 23% ALLOWANCE

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

23%
higher than about 2% of the 41 examiners with published rates in art unit 3642
AU avg 65%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 41 examiners with published rates in art unit 3642; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average.

Disposition60 decided applications

14 allowed
46 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 25.1mo
disposed 43.6mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 19.6 mo, disposed 31.4 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
11%
20%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
82%
64%
§103 — Obviousness
88%
100%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
75%
84%

Interview benefit

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

without
19%
+10 pts
with
29%

A correlation, not proof that interviews cause allowances. Based on 28 decided applications with an interview and 32 without.

◈ ART UNIT 3666
33 APPS · 15% ALLOWANCE · LIMITED DATA

Allowance ratewhere this examiner sits among peers

15%
higher than about 4% of the 71 examiners with published rates in art unit 3666
AU avg 73%
0%
100%
Each short mark is one of the 71 examiners with published rates in art unit 3666; the dot is this examiner. The tick is the art-unit average.

Disposition33 decided applications

5 allowed
28 abandoned
No applications pending.

Pendencymonths from filing

filed
first action 26.2mo
disposed 44.4mo
0
48mo
Art-unit average: first action 21.7 mo, disposed 33.9 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
36%
27%
§102 — Anticipation (novelty)
79%
67%
§103 — Obviousness
86%
93%
§112 — Written description & definiteness
65%
87%

Based on 33 applications — too small a sample to characterize the rejection mix reliably; shown for completeness.

// FAQ

Questions about Examiner Marc R Burgess

  • What is Marc R Burgess's overall allowance rate?
    39% of his decided applications across all art units were allowed. This is the allowance rate calculated from allowed and abandoned applications; pending applications are excluded.
  • Across how many art units does this examiner have a record?
    5 art units within TC 3600.
  • What is the range of allowance rates across his art units?
    The allowance rate ranges from 15% to 47% across the examiner's art units. This range reflects variation in the historical record by art unit; the pooled rate is 39%.
  • Does this record predict the outcome of my application?
    No. Historical allowance rates describe past outcomes and are not predictions for any specific application.
◈ 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.

How the firm prosecutes patents →Application drafting, office-action responses, and prosecution strategy before the USPTO.Work before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board →Appeals, inter partes review, and patent-owner defense before the PTAB.Planning a patent portfolio over time →How a patent portfolio is sequenced and built over a multi-year horizon.The firm's consultation options →Free and paid consultation options across the firm's attorneys.
◈ RESPONDING TO AN OFFICE ACTION

Strategy, not paperwork. Talk to the attorney doing the work.

Lynch LLP represents applicants in patent prosecution before the USPTO. Book a consultation to discuss your matter with the attorney who would handle it.

Book a 30-minute consultation →Send your details instead →
METHODOLOGY & DISCLOSURES

Methodology. This page pools every art unit in which Examiner Marc R Burgess has a public record within Technology Center 3600. 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: 645 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 →

ATTORNEY ADVERTISING — Sean Lynch, Partner, Lynch LLP