Methodology — CrystalMark

The headline read

The four numbers fixed above every profile — refusal, escalation, recovery, difficulty. Each leads with its plain-English answer; the formula is one click away.

Initial refusal rate — over examined apps

Of the applications this examiner examined, the share that drew a substantive refusal — §2(d), descriptiveness, surname, geographic, or another substantive ground. Procedural-only actions don't count, and a docket-noise filter drops backlog re-examinations and abandoned pro se floods. The base counts approvals the examiner granted without ever writing a refusal: first-action allowances (the only record is the allowance milestone) and no-paper approvals (straight to publication, or resolved by an examiner's amendment with no office action at all). Those are the examiner's cleanest outcomes; a base that skipped them would over-state refusal posture most for exactly the most approval-prone examiners (redefined 2026-07-24 — the prior OA-only base read the fleet at ~47%; the examined-apps base reads ~30%). Profile headlines read this same formula over the last two years (labeled "Last 2 yrs," gated at n ≥ 30), with the full-record rate alongside.

Escalation rate (Final | merits-resolved)

Of the refusals where this examiner revealed their posture — pushed to a Final or approved the mark — the share pushed to Final. Read the other way, how often they back down. Conditioning on a refusal keeps applicant quality out of the denominator; conditioning on a merits decision keeps applicant persistence out too — a refusal abandoned before the examiner ever decided says nothing about the examiner, so it sits out of both sides (the same rule the §2(d) escalation rate has always used: abandonment is an applicant decision, never an examiner statistic). Redefined 2026-07-23 — previously the denominator was all refused apps, which diluted the rate with unfought abandonments (fleet read ~17%; the merits-resolved read is ~35%).

Recovery after refusal · when fought

Of the refusals an applicant actually fought — at least one response on file — the share that still reached approval. This is the base rate for the decision an attorney is actually making: my client drew a refusal from this examiner; if we respond, what are the odds?

Difficulty decile

A 1–10 decile of how hard this examiner is to overcome, ranked across the active fleet (active = an office action in the last 365 days). It scores winnability — how firmly they hold a §2(d) at Final, how rarely they withdraw after Final, whether refusals survive a Board appeal — not raw refusal frequency, which mostly reflects the docket they were handed.

The §2(d) playbook

Read in prosecution order — initial, Final, appeal — then the per-case playbook report.

Initial

§2(d) escalation / back-down rate

When this examiner opens with a §2(d) and the matter reaches a merits decision, the share they push to Final — read the other way, how often they back down first. The opening-move number, before a single response is filed.

Initial

§2(d) co-traveling grounds rate

Of the applications this examiner hits with a §2(d), the share where it arrives alongside another substantive ground on the same office action. Clean §2(d) fight, or multi-front response?

Final · the anchor

§2(d) post-Final withdrawal rate (· when pressed)

Among this examiner's Final §2(d) refusals that the applicant actually pressed, the share where the §2(d) came off and the application reached Approved-for-Publication. The single most actionable number at the fight-or-abandon decision — it answers the question as you'd actually face it: if I go back at this Final, does it fold?Redefined 2026-07-23: roughly half of resolved §2(d) Finals are never pressed at all, and a walk-away is an applicant decision, never an examiner statistic — the old unconditioned rate blended those in and understated everyone's odds roughly two-fold (fleet mean ~34% → ~70% when pressed).

Final · argue it

Non-CA §2(d) withdrawal rate

The §2(d) withdrawal rate with coexistence-agreement cases removed: how often this examiner relents on the merits alone. Carries the same pressed-and-resolved conditioning as the anchor rate (§4) — unfought walk-aways and pending cases sit out of both sides.

Final · narrow the goods

Strategic narrowing wins rate

Among §2(d) Finals where the applicant volunteered a narrowing of the goods — not one the examiner required — the share then approved. How often conceding scope unlocks this examiner's §2(d) Final.

Appeal · the lever

The appeal lever — refusal removed after a notice of appeal

File the notice of appeal — how often does the refusal come off without your client ever needing a Board decision? Fleet-wide the refusal came off in about 55% of resolved appeals, and the dominant path is the examiner folding at a median ~2 months, not a ~10-month Board ruling. The per-examiner spread is real signal, which is why the Appeal stage leads with this number.

Appeal

TTAB appeal outcomes

Most appeals never reach a merits decision — they close because the examiner withdrew the refusal (backed down) or the applicant walked away (gave up). "Reversed" is the narrow merits win; "examiner won" is merits affirmance only. No-brief dismissals — the appeal was filed but a brief never followed — used to count as examiner wins; since 2026-07-23 they resolve like every other non-merits closure, by what happened to the application (an approval after the notice of appeal reads as the examiner backing down, an abandonment as the applicant giving up). This taxonomy is the input behind the Appeal stage: the lever rate (§20), the difficulty score's appeal-resistance axis, and the per-case receipts table all read from it.

Appeal · not surfaced

§2(d)-involved TTAB appeals

Appeals on applications carrying a §2(d) Final from this examiner, and how often they end in reversal. §15 spans every refusal ground; this isolates the §2(d) record. Computed and documented for transparency, but no longer shown on profiles (2026-07-12): per-examiner §2(d)-isolated appeal counts run too thin to read as more than noise, so the Appeal stage leads with the all-grounds lever (§20) instead.

The playbook

Cited registrations leaderboard

The ten registrations this examiner cites most in §2(d) refusals. Outcomes count per application — each lands in exactly one fate bucket (cleared, fought and lost, walked away, still open), with contested and held as overlays. Whether a specific barrier is beatable, and how, is the §2(d) detail report (§14). Suppressed below five distinct regs.

The playbook

§2(d) detail report — beatability cascade

Against THIS examiner, is THIS cited registration beatable, and how? The share of applications that fought a §2(d) citing that registration and still reached approval. Fought-conditioned (2026-07-23): the same principle as the recovery and post-Final rates — an application abandoned without ever responding is an applicant decision that says nothing about whether the barrier gives way, and a held refusal on a still-live case isn't an outcome yet. One reg rarely has enough history against one examiner, so the read is usually the examiner's rate across the application's class field, shown against the fleet baseline; a reg-specific rate overlays when it clears the gate on its own.

The full record

Response posture, terminal outcomes, and pace.

Posture

Refusal maintained (per response round)

Of every response round with a known outcome, the share where the examiner held the refusal. The signal an attorney wants: if I push back, will they listen?(Not called “maintenance” here — in trademark practice that means §8/§9/§15 post-registration filings.)

Outcome

Clean approval rate

Of the applications that reached a terminal disposition, the share approved for publication without ever drawing a Final. The win signal that doesn't bundle in approvals dragged through a Final round.

Disposition · cooperative

Examiner's amendment rate

When a fixable problem blocks publication, an examiner can write a formal office action — or call and fix it with an examiner's amendment. This is the share of eligible intervened applications resolved the second way. An amendment can't resolve a substantive refusal (a §2(d) can't be phoned away), so applications where this examiner raised one sit out of both sides — only 9% of amended applications ever involve one. A high share is the cooperative signature: fixable problems get a phone call, not a response cycle.

Docket state · not scored

Suspension tracking

A suspension parks an application — usually behind an earlier-filed conflicting application — and pauses every examination clock. We track suspension letters, the six-month checks, and the release back to the examiner, and surface the state on your docket. How often a docket suspends reflects the applications on it, not the examiner deciding them, so no per-examiner suspension rate is published.

Outcome · context

Publication rate

Share of resolved applications approved for publication, across all bases. Shown as a context cell on the Full record strip — clean approval(§7) stays the headline win signal, because publication rate alone can't tell a smooth ride from a three-round fight that got there anyway.

Pace

Response turnaround, time-to-publication & the first-OA clock

Median days from attorney response to the examiner's next action; median days from the first Office Action to publication approval; and median days from filing to this examiner's first Office Action — the day-one client question (“the examiner has the file — when will we hear?”). The clock headlines the last two years: USPTO first-action pendency peaked in 2021–23, so a career median overstates today's queue for examiners whose docket spans that era; the full-record median rides alongside, labeled. Read all three as throughput, not examiner speed— time-to-publication folds in the attorney's own response time, and filing→first-OA is dominated by USPTO queue latency. That's why the clock carries no vs-fleet verdict color anywhere it renders.

Refusal · by class

Refusal rate by class — the class × ground heatmap

The same substantive-refusal rate as §1, computed separately for each Nice class the examiner has examined, beside the share of that class's refusals citing each ground. Shading always encodes the gap to the fleet in that same class, never the raw rate: classes differ enormously in how often they draw a refusal at all, so shading the absolute number would mostly redraw the docket's composition instead of the examiner's behavior. Every cell prints its own number, so the table reads without relying on color.

The two column families are shaded differently on purpose. The refusal rate is a severity reading — above the fleet means more refusals, plainly worse for the applicant — so it runs green below the fleet and red above. A ground share is a compositionreading: leaning on §2(e)(1) more than the typical examiner is a different fingerprint, not a worse one. Those columns therefore use a single neutral hue whose depth marks distance from typical, with a caret for direction — the shading says “unusual here,” and declines to say “bad here.”

The comparison layer

Fleet baselines — how every “vs fleet” figure is built

Every “vs fleet” clause on a profile compares against an unweighted mean across active examiners with a publishable value for that stat — one examiner, one vote, regardless of docket size. This deliberately answers “how does this examiner compare to the typical examiner?” rather than “what happens to the typical application?” — a volume-weighted average would let a handful of mega-docket examiners define normal.

Known gaps

The integrity signal — what we cannot yet see, stated plainly. Read these three before you trust any number here.

§66(a) Madrid Protocol coverage gap

Our v10 cite extractor under-extracts citations from Madrid Protocol filings by an estimated 5–7%. When an examiner's docket is more than 10% §66(a) filings (strict greater-than), the per-registration case-detail pages carry an inline coverage banner; treat the cited-reg data on those examiners as a lower bound.

Pre-2007 cutoff

USPTO didn't standardise disposition codes until early 2007. We exclude all OAs before that date — including them would inflate "no-disposition" counts and distort every rate. All published metrics on this site are computed against post-2007 data only.

Insufficient data treatment

Below per-metric thresholds we display "Insufficient data — n=X, need ≥Y" rather than a number. The two locked gates: INSUFFICIENT_DATA_THRESHOLD = 30 for overall stats; POST_FINAL_2D_MIN_N = 10 for §2(d) differentiator stats. We will not show a percentage based on n=8.

Built on the public USPTO record — coverage begins January 2007, when the USPTO standardized outcome recording.

Data current as of August 2, 2026 · 07:27 UTC · the most recent stats recompute across the fleet

2,199,115 substantive office actions · 944 active examiners · coverage from January 2007

Questions about a specific metric? support@crystalmark.app. We answer methodology questions in plain English.