Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals • Chemistry & Materials
12 pending office actions • 8 art units • 12 examiners • 0 of 12 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 7 patents granted in the last 365 days
Cepheid has 11 pending office actions in the Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals technology area. These actions are distributed across 11 distinct examiners and 8 distinct art units. This distribution indicates that the portfolio spans multiple sub-specialties within biotechnology. The presence of 8 art units requires a management approach that accounts for varying examination standards across the patent office. Practitioners must be prepared to navigate a wide array of technical requirements and prior art landscapes.
The busiest examiner, TSUI, YUNG-SHENG M, holds 1 busiest examiner pending office action. This distribution across the distinct examiners means that prosecution strategies must be individualized for each application, as no individual examiner handles multiple pending cases. The company must prepare for unique sets of examiner feedback across its active biotechnology filings. Success across the various assigned units will require an understanding of different pharmaceutical examination practices. This decentralized workload prevents the company from relying on a specific examiner's procedural tendencies.
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 |
|---|---|
| §101 + other | 5 (42%) |
| §103 only | 3 (25%) |
| §112 only | 1 (8%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 3 (25%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| TSUI, YUNG-SHENG M | 1 | 66.4% | +6.6% |
| GRAY, JESSICA | 1 | 0.0% | +0.0% |
| GOLDBERG, JEANINE ANNE | 1 | 45.8% | +40.8% |
| KOVACH, KARA NICOLE | 1 | 85.7% | +100.0% |
| SETZER, NICHOLAS LEE | 1 | 68.2% | +41.2% |
| KRCHA, MATTHEW D | 1 | 64.7% | +35.3% |
| ABEL, LENORA A | 1 | 68.3% | +34.5% |
| WASHINGTON, BRITNEY NICOLE | 1 | 83.1% | +13.2% |
| BROWN, MINDY G | 1 | 55.9% | +44.4% |
| JOHANNSEN, DIANA B | 1 | 53.2% | +42.8% |
Cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate of 80%+ where the difficulty is Easy or Medium. The top 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18309691 | NUCLEIC ACID EXTRACTION AND ISOLATION WITH HEAT LABILE SILANES AND CHEMICALLY MODIFIED SOLID SUPPORTS | WASHINGTON, BRITNEY NICOLE | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18527039 | MOTOR HAVING INTEGRATED ACTUATOR WITH ABSOLUTE ENCODER AND METHODS OF USE | SETZER, NICHOLAS LEE | 23d overdue |
| 17576307 | COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS FOR DISCRIMINATING BACTERIAL AND VIRAL INFECTIONS IN A HUMAN SUBJECT | JOHANNSEN, DIANA B | 1d overdue |
| 18680611 | Methods of Detecting Bladder Cancer | TSUI, YUNG-SHENG M | — |
| 18583105 | USE OF DESTABILIZING NUCLEOTIDE TRIPHOSPHATES TO REDUCE AMPLICON FOLDING AND Tm | GRAY, JESSICA | — |
| 18425806 | RESPIRATORY BIOMARKER PANEL | GOLDBERG, JEANINE ANNE | — |
| 18540460 | MPOX CLADE II BIOMARKER PANEL | KOVACH, KARA NICOLE | — |
| 18460253 | SEAL FAILURE DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS | KRCHA, MATTHEW D | — |
| 18460266 | FAULTY UNIT DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS | ABEL, LENORA 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 8 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17921582 | PSEUDO-COMPLEMENTARY BASES IN GENOTYPING AND NUCLEIC ACID SEQUENCING | BROWN, MINDY G | 25d overdue |
| 18527039 | MOTOR HAVING INTEGRATED ACTUATOR WITH ABSOLUTE ENCODER AND METHODS OF USE | SETZER, NICHOLAS LEE | 23d overdue |
| 17576307 | COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS FOR DISCRIMINATING BACTERIAL AND VIRAL INFECTIONS IN A HUMAN SUBJECT | JOHANNSEN, DIANA B | 1d overdue |
| 18425806 | RESPIRATORY BIOMARKER PANEL | GOLDBERG, JEANINE ANNE | — |
| 18540460 | MPOX CLADE II BIOMARKER PANEL | KOVACH, KARA NICOLE | — |
| 18460253 | SEAL FAILURE DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS | KRCHA, MATTHEW D | — |
| 18460266 | FAULTY UNIT DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS | ABEL, LENORA A | — |
| 18309691 | NUCLEIC ACID EXTRACTION AND ISOLATION WITH HEAT LABILE SILANES AND CHEMICALLY MODIFIED SOLID SUPPORTS | WASHINGTON, BRITNEY NICOLE | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1682 | 3 |
| 1681 | 2 |
| 2834 | 1 |
| 1796 | 1 |
| 1799 | 1 |
| 1797 | 1 |
| 1683 | 1 |
| 1671 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18680611 | Methods of Detecting Bladder Cancer | TSUI, YUNG-SHENG M | — | §101DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 31, 2024 |
| 18583105 | USE OF DESTABILIZING NUCLEOTIDE TRIPHOSPHATES TO REDUCE AMPLICON FOLDING AND Tm | GRAY, JESSICA | 1682 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Feb 21, 2024 |
| 18425806 | RESPIRATORY BIOMARKER PANEL | GOLDBERG, JEANINE ANNE | 1682 | §101§102§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 29, 2024 |
| 18540460 | MPOX CLADE II BIOMARKER PANEL | KOVACH, KARA NICOLE | 1681 | §101§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 14, 2023 |
| 18527039 | MOTOR HAVING INTEGRATED ACTUATOR WITH ABSOLUTE ENCODER AND METHODS OF USE | SETZER, NICHOLAS LEE | 2834 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 23d overdue | Pending | Dec 01, 2023 |
| 18460253 | SEAL FAILURE DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS | KRCHA, MATTHEW D | 1796 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Sep 01, 2023 |
| 18460266 | FAULTY UNIT DETECTION SYSTEM AND METHODS | ABEL, LENORA A | 1799 | §101§102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Sep 01, 2023 |
| 18309691 | NUCLEIC ACID EXTRACTION AND ISOLATION WITH HEAT LABILE SILANES AND CHEMICALLY MODIFIED SOLID SUPPORTS | WASHINGTON, BRITNEY NICOLE | 1797 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 28, 2023 |
| 17921582 | PSEUDO-COMPLEMENTARY BASES IN GENOTYPING AND NUCLEIC ACID SEQUENCING | BROWN, MINDY G | 1683 | §112 | Non-Final OA | 25d overdue | Pending | Oct 26, 2022 |
| 17576307 | COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS FOR DISCRIMINATING BACTERIAL AND VIRAL INFECTIONS IN A HUMAN SUBJECT | JOHANNSEN, DIANA B | 1682 | §101§112 | Non-Final OA | 1d overdue | Pending | Jan 14, 2022 |
| 17358523 | METHODS OF DETECTING SARS-COV-2, INFLUENZA, AND RSV | PARKIN, JEFFREY S | 1671 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Jun 25, 2021 |
| 17240865 | EXPONENTIAL BASE-3 AND GREATER NUCLEIC ACID AMPLIFICATION WITH CYCLING PROBE | YU, TIAN NMN | 1681 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 32d overdue | Pending | Apr 26, 2021 |
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