Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics
195 pending office actions • 42 art units • 116 examiners • 18 of 195 (9%) have an AI response strategy ready • 230 patents granted in the last 365 days
ASML Holding N.V. is currently navigating 202 pending office actions within the Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics technology area. These actions are distributed among 120 distinct examiners and 43 distinct art units. This indicates a high volume of activity across a wide range of technical classifications and individual examiners. DEORAM PERSAUD is the busiest examiner for the company, currently overseeing 10 pending office actions. While this is a significant number for one person, it represents only a small portion of the 202 total pending actions.
The involvement of 43 distinct art units highlights the complexity and breadth of the company's semiconductor and optics innovations. With 120 distinct examiners, the company must manage a vast array of individual prosecution styles and preferences. This broad distribution across 43 distinct art units suggests that the company's intellectual property touches on many different specialized facets of semiconductor technology. DEORAM PERSAUD is the most frequent point of contact, but the majority of the 120 distinct examiners are handling far fewer than 10 pending office actions each.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 59 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. 59 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 |
|---|---|
| §101 only | 4 (2%) |
| §101 + other | 23 (12%) |
| §103 only | 56 (29%) |
| §102 only | 20 (10%) |
| §112 only | 6 (3%) |
| Double-patenting only | 1 (1%) |
| Double-patenting + other | 2 (1%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 83 (43%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PERSAUD, DEORAM | 11 | 77.1% | +11.8% |
| WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 10 | 82.0% | +12.9% |
| MCCORMACK, JASON L | 7 | 84.6% | +8.1% |
| RIDDLE, CHRISTINA A | 6 | 81.0% | +13.9% |
| ASFAW, MESFIN T | 5 | 83.1% | +13.9% |
| KIM, PETER B | 5 | 83.0% | +9.5% |
| SMITH, DAVID E | 5 | 85.2% | +7.0% |
| LI, LARRY | 5 | 100.0% | +0.0% |
| WANG, JING | 5 | 100.0% | +0.0% |
| HANSEN, JONATHAN M | 4 | 79.3% | +11.6% |
Cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate of 80%+ where the difficulty is Easy or Medium. The top 8 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17277583 | METROLOGY METHOD AND APPARATUS THEREFOR | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 118d overdue |
| 17874582 | COMPUTATIONAL METROLOGY BASED CORRECTION AND CONTROL | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 66d overdue |
| 18568628 | CHARGED PARTICLE DETECTOR ASSEMBLY | SMITH, DAVID E | 42d overdue |
| 18842640 | APPARATUS AND METHODS FOR FILTERING MEASUREMENT RADIATION | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 9d overdue |
| 18570140 | STRUCTURES FOR USE ON A SUBSTRATE HOLDER, SUBSTRATE HOLDER, LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS AND METHOD | KIM, PETER B | 8d |
| 18320157 | INSPECTION METHOD AND INSPECTION TOOL | MCCORMACK, JASON L | 14d |
| 18331866 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR DIRECTING CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM TOWARDS A SAMPLE | SMITH, DAVID E | 54d |
| 17922580 | SUBSTRATE SUPPORT SYSTEM, LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS AND METHOD OF EXPOSING A SUBSTRATE | RIDDLE, CHRISTINA A | 55d |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 8 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17607701 | A PATTERNING DEVICE | ANGEBRANNDT, MARTIN J | 103d overdue |
| 18565951 | INSPECTION DATA FILTERING SYSTEMS AND METHODS | BHATNAGAR, ANAND P | 100d overdue |
| 17623829 | SUB-FIELD CONTROL OF A LITHOGRAPHIC PROCESS AND ASSOCIATED APPARATUS | TAN, ALVIN H | 99d overdue |
| 18265431 | FEATURE EXTRACTION METHOD FOR EXTRACTING FEATURE VECTORS FOR IDENTIFYING PATTERN OBJECTS | LIEW, ALEX KOK SOON | 93d overdue |
| 18511454 | PROCESS WINDOW BASED ON DEFECT PROBABILITY | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 88d overdue |
| 17632632 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PHOTOLITHOGRAPHIC IMAGING | WHITE, JAY MICHAEL | 86d overdue |
| 18294202 | AN OBJECT GRIPPER, A METHOD OF HOLDING AN OBJECT AND A LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 72d overdue |
| 17794435 | CHARGED PARTICLE MANIPULATOR DEVICE | OSENBAUGH-STEWART, ELIZA W | 72d overdue |
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 8 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17277583 | METROLOGY METHOD AND APPARATUS THEREFOR | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 118d overdue |
| 18511454 | PROCESS WINDOW BASED ON DEFECT PROBABILITY | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 88d overdue |
| 18294202 | AN OBJECT GRIPPER, A METHOD OF HOLDING AN OBJECT AND A LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 72d overdue |
| 17874582 | COMPUTATIONAL METROLOGY BASED CORRECTION AND CONTROL | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 66d overdue |
| 18705509 | DETERMINING AN ETCH EFFECT BASED ON AN ETCH BIAS DIRECTION | ASFAW, MESFIN T | 60d overdue |
| 18025183 | TARGET STRUCTURE AND ASSOCIATED METHODS AND APPARATUS | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 51d overdue |
| 18280459 | DIGITAL HOLOGRAPHIC MICROSCOPE AND ASSOCIATED METROLOGY METHOD | HANSEN, JONATHAN M | 50d overdue |
| 18712671 | SURROUNDING PATTERN AND PROCESS AWARE METROLOGY | PERSAUD, DEORAM | 38d overdue |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2882 | 21 |
| 2877 | 21 |
| 2881 | 19 |
| 1759 | 10 |
| 2878 | 6 |
| 1737 | 6 |
| 2851 | 4 |
| 2884 | 2 |
| 2677 | 2 |
| 2666 | 2 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19125621 | CONTAMINATION CONTROL | ASFAW, MESFIN T | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 29, 2025 |
| 19092004 | COOLING DEVICE FOR COOLING A POSITION-SENSITIVE COMPONENT OF A LITHOGRAPHY SYSTEM | PERSAUD, DEORAM | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Mar 27, 2025 |
| 19029961 | METHOD FOR DETERMINING DEFECTIVENESS OF PATTERN BASED ON AFTER DEVELOPMENT IMAGE | BAKER, CHARLOTTE M | — | DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 17, 2025 |
| 19026708 | SUBSTRATE HOLDER FOR USE IN LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS AND A DEVICE MANUFACTURING METHOD | PERSAUD, DEORAM | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 17, 2025 |
| 19009394 | LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS AND METHOD | PERSAUD, DEORAM | — | §103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 03, 2025 |
| 19008794 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR PROCESS-WINDOW CHARACTERIZATION | ASFAW, MESFIN T | — | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 03, 2025 |
| 19009546 | ABERRATION IMPACT SYSTEMS, MODELS, AND MANUFACTURING PROCESSES | PERSAUD, DEORAM | — | §102§103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 03, 2025 |
| 18876810 | METROLOGY METHOD AND ASSOCIATED METROLOGY DEVICE | PERSAUD, DEORAM | 2882 | §101§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 19, 2024 |
| 18876622 | A MULTI-PASS RADIATION DEVICE | DOUMBIA, MOHAMED | 2877 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 18, 2024 |
| 18876196 | PARAMETERIZED INSPECTION IMAGE SIMULATION | CRAWFORD, JACINTA M | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 18, 2024 |
| 18874812 | SYSTEMS FOR PATH COMPENSATION WITH A MOVING OBJECTIVE | SUMLAR, JOURNEY F | — | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 13, 2024 |
| 18873382 | SEMICONDUCTOR CHARGED PARTICLE DETECTOR AND METHODS THEREOF | KEFAYATI, SOORENA | 2884 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 10, 2024 |
| 18871903 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTACTLESS INSPECTION OF A SUBSTRATE | HOQUE, FARHANA AKHTER | — | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 05, 2024 |
| 18871795 | FLUID DISPENSING SYSTEM AND METHOD | CLEMENTE, ROBERT ARTHUR | 1711 | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 04, 2024 |
| 18871448 | ISOLATING SPACER FOR ELECTRON-OPTICAL ASSEMBLY | GASSEN, CHRISTOPHER J | — | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 03, 2024 |
| 18870245 | SYSTEM, APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR SELECTIVE SURFACE TREATMENT | PERSAUD, DEORAM | 2882 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 27, 2024 |
| 18960519 | CALIBRATION SYSTEM FOR AN EXTREME ULTRAVIOLET LIGHT SOURCE | BOOSALIS, FANI POLYZOS | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 26, 2024 |
| 18868972 | A MEMBRANE AND ASSOCIATED METHOD AND APPARATUS | KIM, PETER B | 2882 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 25, 2024 |
| 18868802 | SENSOR MODULE, ILLUMINATOR, METROLOGY DEVICE AND ASSOCIATED METROLOGY METHOD | RIDDLE, CHRISTINA A | 2882 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Nov 25, 2024 |
| 18868800 | CALIBRATION METHOD AND APPARATUS | UNDERWOOD, JARREAS C | 2877 | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 25, 2024 |
| 18867491 | CLASSIFYING PRODUCT UNITS | CHOI, ALICIA M | — | §101 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 20, 2024 |
| 18867005 | METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR REDUCING CHARGING ARTIFACT IN INSPECTION IMAGE | BROUGHTON, KATHLEEN M | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 19, 2024 |
| 18866666 | METHOD AND APPARATUSES FOR FOURIER TRANSFORM SPECTROMETRY | SMITH, MAURICE C | 2877 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Nov 18, 2024 |
| 18866490 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR COUNTING PARTICLES ON A DETECTOR DURING INSPECTION | MAUPIN, HUGH H | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 15, 2024 |
| 18866471 | DROPLET GENERATOR NOZZLE | MCCORMACK, JASON L | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 15, 2024 |
| 18865955 | ENHANCED ALIGNMENT APPARATUS FOR LITHOGRAPHIC SYSTEMS | LEE, HWA S | 2877 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Nov 14, 2024 |
| 18864761 | METHOD OF SPATIALLY ALIGNING A PATTERNING DEVICE AND A SUBSTRATE | HANSEN, JONATHAN M | 2877 | §102 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Nov 11, 2024 |
| 18864463 | OBTAINING HIGH RESOLUTION INFORMATION FROM LOW RESOLUTION IMAGES | KALISZEWSKI, ALINA ROSE | — | §101§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 08, 2024 |
| 18864099 | DETECTOR FOR DETECTING RADIATION, METHOD OF DETECTING RADIATION, ASSESSMENT SYSTEM | SONG, HOON K | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 08, 2024 |
| 18863941 | CONTAMINATION DETERMINATION | KIM, PETER B | 2882 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 34d | Pending | Nov 07, 2024 |
| 18863624 | CONTAMINATION MEASUREMENT | AMARA, MOHAMED K | 2877 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Nov 06, 2024 |
| 18861859 | METHOD AND SYSTEM OF OVERLAY MEASUREMENT USING CHARGED-PARTICLE INSPECTION APPARATUS | NGUYEN, HUNG | 2882 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 30, 2024 |
| 18861173 | MEASUREMENT OF FABRICATION PARAMETERS BASED ON MOIRÉ INTERFERENCE PATTERN COMPONENTS | COOK, JONATHON | 2877 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 28, 2024 |
| 18860879 | MECHATRONIC SYSTEM CONTROL METHOD, LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS CONTROL METHOD AND LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS | NGUYEN, BAO LONG T | — | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 28, 2024 |
| 18860248 | OPTICAL ARRANGEMENT FOR A METROLOGY SYSTEM | BAGHDASARYAN, HOVHANNES | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 25, 2024 |
| 18860115 | SINGLE PAD OVERLAY MEASUREMENT | BRYANT, REBECCA CAROLE | 2877 | §102 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 25, 2024 |
| 18859655 | MIRROR ASSEMBLY FOR MICROMIRROR ARRAY | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 1759 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 24, 2024 |
| 18859981 | PASSIVE INTEGRATED OPTICAL SYSTEMS AND METHODS FOR REDUCTION OF SPATIAL OPTICAL COHERENCE | ASFAW, MESFIN T | 2882 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 24, 2024 |
| 18859954 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMPROVING IMAGE QUALITY DURING INSPECTION | CASCAIS, JUSTIN PHILIP | — | §103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 24, 2024 |
| 18859466 | TRANSIENT DEFECT INSPECTION USING AN INSPECTION IMAGE | GORADIA, SHEFALI DINESH | — | §101§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 23, 2024 |
| 18859485 | THERMALLY ACTUATED COOLING SYSTEM | EINHORN, MICA JILLIAN | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 23, 2024 |
| 18857065 | SYSTEMS, METHODS, AND SOFTWARE FOR MULTILAYER METROLOGY | CODRINGTON, SHANE WRENSFORD | — | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 15, 2024 |
| 18856459 | A LITHOGRAPHIC APPARATUS, AN INSPECTION SYSTEM, AND A DETECTOR HAVING A SQUARE-CORE FIBER | AKANBI, ISIAKA O | 2877 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 11, 2024 |
| 18911806 | CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM APPARATUS WITH MULTIPLE DETECTORS AND METHODS FOR IMAGING | MCCORMACK, JASON L | — | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 10, 2024 |
| 18910626 | SELF-DIFFERENTIAL CONFOCAL TILT SENSOR FOR MEASURING LEVEL VARIATION IN CHARGED PARTICLE BEAM SYSTEM | SMITH, DAVID E | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 09, 2024 |
| 18855625 | CHARGED-PARTICLE BEAM APPARATUS WITH LARGE FIELD-OF-VIEW AND METHODS THEREOF | LI, LARRY | — | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 09, 2024 |
| 18855206 | HOLLOW-CORE OPTICAL FIBER BASED RADIATION SOURCE | HOLLWEG, THOMAS A | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 08, 2024 |
| 18907436 | SENSOR SUBSTRATE, APPARATUS, AND METHOD | IPPOLITO, NICOLE MARIE | — | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 04, 2024 |
| 18854000 | WAFER EDGE INSPECTION OF CHARGED PARTICLE INSPECTION SYSTEM | LI, LARRY | — | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 03, 2024 |
| 18853562 | HIGH PRESSURE COUPLING ASSEMBLY | BOOSALIS, FANI POLYZOS | 2884 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 02, 2024 |
IP Author helps IP teams respond to office actions faster with AI-generated responses, examiner analytics, and prosecution intelligence.
Start Free TrialASML Holding N.V. has 195 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 42 art units and 116 examiners.
Deoram Persaud has the most, with 11 of ASML Holding N.V.'s pending office actions.
Mostly Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics (USPTO Tech Center 2800), based on where its pending office actions are examined.