Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals • Chemistry & Materials
2 pending office actions • 2 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 2 patents granted in the last 365 days
Fermentalg has 2 pending office actions in the Chemistry & Materials technology area. These matters are handled by 2 distinct examiners across 2 distinct art units. This means that each pending action is being reviewed by a different examiner in a different technical division. The lack of overlap between examiners and art units suggests that the company's current filings cover diverse technical subjects. This diversity requires the company to manage multiple sets of technical guidelines simultaneously.
The busiest examiner is FRITCHMAN, REBECCA M, who is responsible for 1 pending office action. Because there are 2 pending office actions, this examiner is responsible for 1 of the active matters. For a practitioner, this means that each of the pending actions requires a unique approach tailored to a specific examiner and art unit. There is no centralization of the workload under 1 examiner or 1 art unit, which may require more varied legal arguments to address the different standards of the distinct art units involved. This structure necessitates a broad understanding of different patent office divisions.
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 | 1 (50%) |
| No statute on record | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| JONES-FOSTER, ERICA NICOLE | 1 | 48.1% | +44.7% |
| FRITCHMAN, REBECCA M | 1 | 45.7% | +35.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17420798 | PROCESS FOR PURIFYING PHYCOCYANINS | JONES-FOSTER, ERICA NICOLE | 21d |
| 17420801 | PROCESS FOR EXTRACTING PHYCOCYANINS | FRITCHMAN, REBECCA M | 82d |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1656 | 1 |
| 1758 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 17420798 | PROCESS FOR PURIFYING PHYCOCYANINS | JONES-FOSTER, ERICA NICOLE | 1656 | — | Non-Final OA | 21d | Pending | Jul 06, 2021 |
| 17420801 | PROCESS FOR EXTRACTING PHYCOCYANINS | FRITCHMAN, REBECCA M | 1758 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 82d | Pending | Jul 06, 2021 |
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