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After receiving an NOA and paying the fee, I was anticipating an issue notification within days. Two days after paying the fee, I instead received a Notice of Withdrawal of Allowance.

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The uploaded document, "Notice of Withdrawal from Issue Branch (PTOL-67)" shows that the application was withdrawn by the Office under 37 CFR 1.313(b), which could be for one of the following yet-unknown reasons: (1) a mistake on the part of the Office: (2) a violation of 37 CFR 1.56 or illegality in the application; (3) unpatentability of one or more claims; or (4) for interference or derivation.

Public PAIR transaction shows that there is now a non-final rejection. It'll be a few days to find out the exact reason and then plan to act accordingly (my guess is that it is (3), due to a newly discovered prior art, but we'll see).

I understand that this is a relatively rare occurrence. My lawyer said this happens in a small % of allowed cases but I've looked through dozens of cases without finding any, and have only uncovered 2 or 3 via Google.

Any ideas how often this happens, and how I can search out more cases to review?

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It is rare. I practiced as a patent agent for about ten years and never had a NOA withdrawn. Finding other cases where this happened might not be of much help.

Until you see the office action you and your lawyer can't do anything but - from the MPEP the Notice should have indicated which of the four reasons caused this withdrawal.

Any notice withdrawing an application from issue after payment of the issue fee must specify which of the conditions set forth in 37 CFR 1.313(b)(1) through (4) exists and thus warrants withdrawal of the application from issue

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