Technology areas: Chemistry & Materials • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
5 pending office actions • 4 art units • 5 examiners • 0 of 5 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 8 patents granted in the last 365 days
Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG is currently managing 9 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These actions are distributed across 9 distinct examiners and 6 distinct art units. This distribution shows that while every pending action has a unique examiner, the 9 examiners are concentrated within a smaller group of 6 art units. This suggests a high volume of specialized filings that, while diverse enough to require 9 distinct examiners, still fall within a relatively narrow range of 6 distinct art units.
The busiest examiner, GOLIGHTLY, ERIC WAYNE, is responsible for 1 pending office action. This workload is representative of the decentralized nature of the portfolio, where the 1 pending office action per examiner is the standard across the entire set of 9 pending office actions. For the practitioner, managing 9 pending office actions across 6 distinct art units requires a coordinated effort to ensure that arguments made to one of the 9 distinct examiners do not conflict with those made to another. The concentration of 9 distinct examiners within 6 distinct art units may also mean that certain examiners are colleagues within the same unit.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 4 of the docket's apps have a known mailing date; the rest are excluded from the tile counts.
Every pending office action with a known statutory deadline, placed on a days-until-due axis. Dots left of Today are overdue; the further right, the more runway. Cases that share a deadline window stack vertically. 4 of the docket's apps have a known mailing date.
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 |
|---|---|
| §112 only | 1 (20%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 4 (80%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| GOLIGHTLY, ERIC WAYNE | 1 | 77.7% | +25.2% |
| SAENZ, ALBERTO | 1 | 68.9% | +30.9% |
| BERGNER, ERIN FLANAGAN | 1 | 76.4% | +30.8% |
| HORTON, ANDREW ALAN | 1 | 80.7% | +17.8% |
| CORMIER, DAVID G | 1 | 64.6% | +28.7% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 4 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17989338 | BATTERY-OPERATED BACKPACK SUCTION APPLIANCE | HORTON, ANDREW ALAN | 35d overdue |
| 18315410 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING CO2 PELLETS FROM CO2 SNOW, AND CLEANING APPLIANCE | BERGNER, ERIN FLANAGAN | 32d overdue |
| 18755261 | CLEANING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING A CLEANING SYSTEM | GOLIGHTLY, ERIC WAYNE | 15d |
| 18315421 | CLEANING APPLIANCE | SAENZ, ALBERTO | — |
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 5 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17989338 | BATTERY-OPERATED BACKPACK SUCTION APPLIANCE | HORTON, ANDREW ALAN | 35d overdue |
| 18315410 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING CO2 PELLETS FROM CO2 SNOW, AND CLEANING APPLIANCE | BERGNER, ERIN FLANAGAN | 32d overdue |
| 17587902 | HIGH PRESSURE CLEANING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING A HIGH PRESSURE CLEANING SYSTEM | CORMIER, DAVID G | 5d overdue |
| 18755261 | CLEANING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING A CLEANING SYSTEM | GOLIGHTLY, ERIC WAYNE | 15d |
| 18315421 | CLEANING APPLIANCE | SAENZ, ALBERTO | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3723 | 2 |
| 1714 | 1 |
| 1713 | 1 |
| 1711 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18755261 | CLEANING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING A CLEANING SYSTEM | GOLIGHTLY, ERIC WAYNE | 1714 | §102§103§112 | Final Rejection | 15d | Pending | Jun 26, 2024 |
| 18315421 | CLEANING APPLIANCE | SAENZ, ALBERTO | 3723 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 10, 2023 |
| 18315410 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING CO2 PELLETS FROM CO2 SNOW, AND CLEANING APPLIANCE | BERGNER, ERIN FLANAGAN | 1713 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 32d overdue | Pending | May 10, 2023 |
| 17989338 | BATTERY-OPERATED BACKPACK SUCTION APPLIANCE | HORTON, ANDREW ALAN | 3723 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 35d overdue | Pending | Nov 17, 2022 |
| 17587902 | HIGH PRESSURE CLEANING SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR OPERATING A HIGH PRESSURE CLEANING SYSTEM | CORMIER, DAVID G | 1711 | §112 | Final Rejection | 5d overdue | Pending | Jan 28, 2022 |
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Start Free TrialAlfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG has 5 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 4 art units and 5 examiners.
Eric Wayne Golightly has the most, with 1 of Alfred Kärcher SE & Co. KG's pending office actions.
Mostly Chemistry & Materials (USPTO Tech Center 1700), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
