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 • 8 patents granted in the last 365 days
Biomet Sports Medicine LLC manages a patent portfolio in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. There are 2 pending office actions and 2 distinct examiners currently active for the company. However, these actions are located within 1 distinct art unit, suggesting a unified technical focus for the company's current filings.
The busiest examiner for this portfolio is HOLWERDA, KATHLEEN SONNETT, who is responsible for 1 busiest examiner pending office action. Since the workload is divided, each examiner handles the action assigned to them. The fact that this distinct art unit covers these actions means that while the company interacts with distinct examiners, it is dealing with a single administrative group within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering sector. This requires balancing the individual preferences of different examiners within a consistent technical framework. The company's immediate goals in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering sector are distributed across these active files.
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%) |
| §112 only | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| HOLWERDA, KATHLEEN SONNETT | 1 | 68.7% | +17.8% |
| DORNBUSCH, DIANNE | 1 | 73.9% | +35.2% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19023072 | KNOTLESS SOFT TISSUE DEVICES AND TECHNIQUES | HOLWERDA, KATHLEEN SONNETT | — |
| 18531362 | METHOD FOR TISSUE FIXATION | DORNBUSCH, DIANNE | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3771 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19023072 | KNOTLESS SOFT TISSUE DEVICES AND TECHNIQUES | HOLWERDA, KATHLEEN SONNETT | — | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Jan 15, 2025 |
| 18531362 | METHOD FOR TISSUE FIXATION | DORNBUSCH, DIANNE | 3771 | §112Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 06, 2023 |
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