Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
2 pending office actions • 1 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 5 patents granted in the last 365 days
Aerin Medical Inc. currently has 2 pending office actions in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These 2 pending office actions are assigned to 2 distinct examiners. Both of these actions are located within 1 distinct art unit, indicating a concentrated technical focus for the pending applications.
SHOULDERS, ANNIE LEE is the busiest examiner for the company, managing 1 pending office action. With 2 distinct examiners handling the 2 pending office actions, the workload is evenly divided. The concentration in 1 distinct art unit may provide the company with a more unified experience regarding the technical standards applied during examination. This allows for a more streamlined approach to managing the 2 pending office actions within the same technical division. SHOULDERS, ANNIE LEE is one of the 2 distinct examiners the company must satisfy.
Practitioners should observe that while the examiners differ, the 1 distinct art unit provides a common administrative framework. The Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering area is the primary focus for these 2 pending office actions. Successfully navigating the requirements of 2 distinct examiners within the same art unit is the company's current prosecution goal. The 2 pending office actions represent the entirety of Aerin Medical Inc.'s active challenges at the patent office.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 1 of the docket's apps have a known mailing date; the rest are excluded from the tile counts.
Difficulty is derived from the rejection statutes on the most recent pending office action. §101-driven and multi-statute cases are graded Hard; §112-only and obviousness-type double-patenting cases are graded Easy; everything else is Medium. "Unknown" means we have not yet parsed a statute for that office action.
| Bucket | Cases |
|---|---|
| §103 only | 1 (50%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 1 (50%) |
How the docket's pending cases split across USPTO tech-center bands.
Manual office-action response work runs about 10 hours per case. The time-saved bands below show what IP Author's prosecution pipeline typically delivers — a conservative 20% on the low end, 35% in the middle, 50% on the high end.
| Examiner | Apps on this docket | Allow rate | Interview lift |
|---|---|---|---|
| SHOULDERS, ANNIE LEE | 1 | 74.6% | +17.6% |
| FOWLER, DANIEL WAYNE | 1 | 72.7% | +12.4% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18737401 | ETHMOIDAL NERVE TREATMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD | SHOULDERS, ANNIE LEE | 34d |
Cases in front of an examiner whose interview lift is 10 percentage points or more — i.e. interviewed cases historically resolve more favorably than non-interviewed ones. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18737401 | ETHMOIDAL NERVE TREATMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD | SHOULDERS, ANNIE LEE | 34d |
| 17662113 | METHODS AND DEVICES TO TREAT NASAL AIRWAYS | FOWLER, DANIEL WAYNE | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3794 | 2 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18737401 | ETHMOIDAL NERVE TREATMENT SYSTEM AND METHOD | SHOULDERS, ANNIE LEE | 3794 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | 34d | Pending | Jun 07, 2024 |
| 17662113 | METHODS AND DEVICES TO TREAT NASAL AIRWAYS | FOWLER, DANIEL WAYNE | 3794 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 05, 2022 |
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