Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Networking & Security • Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems
3 pending office actions • 2 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 3 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 14 patents granted in the last 365 days
Avast Software s.r.o. has 3 pending office actions within the Networking & Security technology area. These 3 actions are assigned to 3 distinct examiners, meaning each pending matter is being reviewed by a different individual. The portfolio is distributed across 2 distinct art units, indicating that the networking and security applications fall into different specialized categories at the USPTO. This distribution across 2 distinct art units requires the company to adapt to the standards of multiple administrative groups.
Afaq Ali is the busiest examiner for the portfolio with 1 pending office action. Since there are 3 distinct examiners for the 3 total actions, the workload is distributed with no examiner overlap. The involvement of 3 distinct examiners suggests that the company must manage separate prosecution environments. Each of the 3 pending office actions is subject to the individual perspective of its assigned examiner. Practitioners should develop specific strategies for each case within the Networking & Security sector to address this lack of examiner concentration.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 2 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 |
|---|---|
| §101 only | 1 (33%) |
| §103 only | 1 (33%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 1 (33%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ALI, AFAQ | 1 | 89.5% | +11.9% |
| SHIFERAW, ELENI A | 1 | 38.5% | +37.5% |
| CARVALHO, ERROL A | 1 | 15.2% | +18.3% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17399884 | APPLICATION USER JOURNEY MANAGEMENT | CARVALHO, ERROL A | 72d overdue |
| 19186133 | PRIVACY PREFERENCE BASED DEVICE CONTROLS | ALI, AFAQ | — |
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 3 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18306861 | MALWARE ANALYSIS USING GROUP TESTING | SHIFERAW, ELENI A | 300d overdue |
| 17399884 | APPLICATION USER JOURNEY MANAGEMENT | CARVALHO, ERROL A | 72d overdue |
| 19186133 | PRIVACY PREFERENCE BASED DEVICE CONTROLS | ALI, AFAQ | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2497 | 1 |
| 3622 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19186133 | PRIVACY PREFERENCE BASED DEVICE CONTROLS | ALI, AFAQ | — | §103§112Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 22, 2025 |
| 18306861 | MALWARE ANALYSIS USING GROUP TESTING | SHIFERAW, ELENI A | 2497 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 300d overdue | Pending | Apr 25, 2023 |
| 17399884 | APPLICATION USER JOURNEY MANAGEMENT | CARVALHO, ERROL A | 3622 | §101 | Final Rejection | 72d overdue | Pending | Aug 11, 2021 |
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