Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Communications • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
4 pending office actions • 3 art units • 4 examiners • 0 of 4 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 2 patents granted in the last 365 days
Digital Surgery Systems Inc. is currently managing 4 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These actions are distributed across 4 distinct examiners and 3 distinct art units, showing a high degree of examiner variety for the company's current filings. The involvement of 4 distinct examiners for 4 pending office actions indicates that each matter is being reviewed by a different individual.
MORALES, JON ERIC C is the busiest examiner for this portfolio, currently handling 1 pending office action. This 1 action is 1 of the 4 pending office actions currently active across the 3 distinct art units for the company. No single examiner is responsible for more than 1 of the total pending workload at this time, reflecting a distributed administrative environment.
These matters are distributed across 3 distinct art units in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering sector, suggesting a moderately diverse examination environment. Practitioners must be prepared to navigate the specific procedural requirements of 3 distinct art units while managing communications with 4 different examiners. This structure requires a flexible approach to prosecution to address the varying standards across the 3 distinct art units involved.
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 |
|---|---|
| §103 only | 3 (75%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 1 (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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MORALES, JON ERIC C | 1 | 85.4% | +10.0% |
| IP, JASON M | 1 | 55.2% | +25.2% |
| MIDKIFF, AARON | 1 | 50.6% | +22.4% |
| SCHLUETER, MARY GRACE | 1 | 77.8% | +33.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18837414 | MICROPHONE DIRECTIONALITY CONTROL BASED ON SURGEON'S COMMAND | MORALES, JON ERIC C | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18563213 | BAYONET REGISTRATION TOOL/PROBE | IP, JASON M | 39d |
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 4 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17967406 | LOCALIZATION TARGET FOR A DIGITAL SURGICAL STEREOSCOPE | SCHLUETER, MARY GRACE | 34d |
| 18563213 | BAYONET REGISTRATION TOOL/PROBE | IP, JASON M | 39d |
| 18837414 | MICROPHONE DIRECTIONALITY CONTROL BASED ON SURGEON'S COMMAND | MORALES, JON ERIC C | — |
| 18009528 | SYSTEM, METHOD, AND APPARATUS FOR HAND-CENTRIC CONTROLLER FOR THE ROBOTIC DIGITAL SURGICAL MICROSCOPE | MIDKIFF, AARON | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3796 | 2 |
| 3797 | 1 |
| 2621 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18837414 | MICROPHONE DIRECTIONALITY CONTROL BASED ON SURGEON'S COMMAND | MORALES, JON ERIC C | 3796 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 09, 2024 |
| 18563213 | BAYONET REGISTRATION TOOL/PROBE | IP, JASON M | 3797 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 39d | Pending | Nov 21, 2023 |
| 18009528 | SYSTEM, METHOD, AND APPARATUS FOR HAND-CENTRIC CONTROLLER FOR THE ROBOTIC DIGITAL SURGICAL MICROSCOPE | MIDKIFF, AARON | 2621 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Dec 09, 2022 |
| 17967406 | LOCALIZATION TARGET FOR A DIGITAL SURGICAL STEREOSCOPE | SCHLUETER, MARY GRACE | 3796 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 34d | Pending | Oct 17, 2022 |
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