Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals • Chemistry & Materials • Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems
15 pending office actions • 9 art units • 13 examiners • 0 of 15 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 9 patents granted in the last 365 days
Hill's Pet Nutrition Inc. maintains a prosecution profile with 14 pending office actions in the Chemistry & Materials technology area. These actions are distributed across 9 distinct art units, demonstrating a reach within the chemical sciences. The company must navigate an examiner landscape where there are 13 distinct examiners currently reviewing their applications.
SHELLHAMMER, JAMES PAUL is the busiest examiner for this portfolio, currently handling 2 pending office actions. The other pending office actions are spread across the remaining distinct examiners, indicating that most cases are receiving individual attention from different officials. This number of 13 distinct examiners across 9 distinct art units suggests that practitioners must be prepared for a variety of examination styles and technical interpretations. Managing 14 pending office actions requires a coordinated strategy to ensure consistency across the diverse Chemistry & Materials filings. The presence of 9 distinct art units underscores the variety of chemical technologies being pursued.
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 | 4 (27%) |
| §103 only | 6 (40%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 5 (33%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SHELLHAMMER, JAMES PAUL | 2 | 10.0% | +18.8% |
| WHALEY, PABLO S | 2 | 25.1% | +21.4% |
| EZEWOKO, MICHAEL I | 1 | 61.5% | +51.2% |
| GO, JOHN PHILIP | 1 | 34.1% | +43.1% |
| DUBOIS, PHILIP A | 1 | 25.5% | +26.3% |
| BASQUILL, SEAN M | 1 | 38.8% | +21.7% |
| KOHLER, STEPHANIE A | 1 | 31.9% | +31.1% |
| MERRIAM, ANDREW E | 1 | 26.8% | +32.4% |
| BEKKER, KELLY JO | 1 | 16.7% | +35.4% |
| ROBERTS, LEZAH | 1 | 48.4% | +35.1% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18248791 | Pet Food Compositions | SHELLHAMMER, JAMES PAUL | 31d overdue |
| 17388393 | System and Method for Determining Caloric Requirements of an Animal | WHALEY, PABLO S | 22d |
| 18800955 | Machine Learning-Based Phenotypic Age and Phenotypic Age Acceleration/Deceleration Prediction Tool for Pets | GO, JOHN PHILIP | 27d |
| 17383750 | System and Method for Determining Caloric Requirements of an Animal Based on a Plurality of Durational Parameters | WHALEY, PABLO S | 33d |
| 19137108 | Systems And Devices For Collecting Health Data And Methods Of Using Same | EZEWOKO, MICHAEL I | — |
| 18775891 | Pet Food Compositions and Methods for the Same | DUBOIS, PHILIP A | — |
| 18756828 | PET SHAMPOOS, PET FOOD COMPOSITIONS, AND REGIMENS AND/OR METHODS THEREOF | BASQUILL, SEAN M | — |
| 18755193 | Pet Food Compositions | KOHLER, STEPHANIE 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18248791 | Pet Food Compositions | SHELLHAMMER, JAMES PAUL | 31d overdue |
| 17388393 | System and Method for Determining Caloric Requirements of an Animal | WHALEY, PABLO S | 22d |
| 18800955 | Machine Learning-Based Phenotypic Age and Phenotypic Age Acceleration/Deceleration Prediction Tool for Pets | GO, JOHN PHILIP | 27d |
| 17383750 | System and Method for Determining Caloric Requirements of an Animal Based on a Plurality of Durational Parameters | WHALEY, PABLO S | 33d |
| 19137108 | Systems And Devices For Collecting Health Data And Methods Of Using Same | EZEWOKO, MICHAEL I | — |
| 18775891 | Pet Food Compositions and Methods for the Same | DUBOIS, PHILIP A | — |
| 18756828 | PET SHAMPOOS, PET FOOD COMPOSITIONS, AND REGIMENS AND/OR METHODS THEREOF | BASQUILL, SEAN M | — |
| 18755193 | Pet Food Compositions | KOHLER, STEPHANIE A | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1793 | 3 |
| 1791 | 2 |
| 3619 | 2 |
| 3682 | 1 |
| 3681 | 1 |
| 1614 | 1 |
| 1792 | 1 |
| 1612 | 1 |
| 1617 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19137108 | Systems And Devices For Collecting Health Data And Methods Of Using Same | EZEWOKO, MICHAEL I | 3682 | §101§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 09, 2025 |
| 18800955 | Machine Learning-Based Phenotypic Age and Phenotypic Age Acceleration/Deceleration Prediction Tool for Pets | GO, JOHN PHILIP | 3681 | §101§112 | Final Rejection | 27d | Pending | Aug 12, 2024 |
| 18775891 | Pet Food Compositions and Methods for the Same | DUBOIS, PHILIP A | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 17, 2024 |
| 18756828 | PET SHAMPOOS, PET FOOD COMPOSITIONS, AND REGIMENS AND/OR METHODS THEREOF | BASQUILL, SEAN M | 1614 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 27, 2024 |
| 18755193 | Pet Food Compositions | KOHLER, STEPHANIE A | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 26, 2024 |
| 18720263 | Methods and Compositions for Improving the Health of Companion Animals | MERRIAM, ANDREW E | 1791 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 14, 2024 |
| 18335201 | Pet Food Compositions | BEKKER, KELLY JO | 1792 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 15, 2023 |
| 18335208 | PET FOOD COMPOSITIONS | ROBERTS, LEZAH | 1612 | §103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 15, 2023 |
| 18312757 | Pet Food Compositions | PALLAY, MICHAEL B | 1617 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 05, 2023 |
| 18248791 | Pet Food Compositions | SHELLHAMMER, JAMES PAUL | 1793 | §103 | Final Rejection | 31d overdue | Pending | Apr 12, 2023 |
| 18043141 | Pet Food Compositions | MCNEIL, JENNIFER C | 1793 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Feb 27, 2023 |
| 17975528 | Pet Food Compositions | SHELLHAMMER, JAMES PAUL | 1793 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 27, 2022 |
| 17388393 | System and Method for Determining Caloric Requirements of an Animal | WHALEY, PABLO S | 3619 | §101§112 | Final Rejection | 22d | Pending | Jul 29, 2021 |
| 17383750 | System and Method for Determining Caloric Requirements of an Animal Based on a Plurality of Durational Parameters | WHALEY, PABLO S | 3619 | §101§112Other | Final Rejection | 33d | Pending | Jul 23, 2021 |
| 16067238 | Pet Food Compositions | LIU, DEBORAH YANG-HAO | 1791 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 29, 2018 |
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