Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
2 pending office actions • 2 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 1 patents granted in the last 365 days
C4 Carbides Limited currently has 2 pending office actions in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. This indicates a dual-focused approach to its current patent prosecution. These 2 actions are assigned to 2 distinct examiners, which provides the company with different perspectives on its applications and avoids a single point of failure in the review process.
The portfolio's activity is further diversified across 2 distinct art units, reflecting a range of technical subject matter within the mechanical engineering field. HOTCHKISS, MICHAEL WAYNE is the busiest examiner for the portfolio, though he is only responsible for 1 pending office action. Given that there are 2 pending actions in total, the workload is perfectly distributed with each of the 2 distinct examiners handling one action. This balanced distribution across different art units suggests that the company is pursuing multiple distinct technical innovations simultaneously.
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 |
|---|---|
| §102 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| HOTCHKISS, MICHAEL WAYNE | 1 | 69.5% | +49.6% |
| AYALA, FERNANDO A | 1 | 53.6% | +26.2% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 16902952 | TOOL BLADES | AYALA, FERNANDO A | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18633208 | Drill Bit and Associated Method of Making a Drill Bit | HOTCHKISS, MICHAEL WAYNE | — |
| 16902952 | TOOL BLADES | AYALA, FERNANDO A | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3726 | 1 |
| 3724 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18633208 | Drill Bit and Associated Method of Making a Drill Bit | HOTCHKISS, MICHAEL WAYNE | 3726 | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 11, 2024 |
| 16902952 | TOOL BLADES | AYALA, FERNANDO A | 3724 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 16, 2020 |
IP Author helps IP teams respond to office actions faster with AI-generated responses, examiner analytics, and prosecution intelligence.
Start Free Trial