Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
4 pending office actions • 2 art units • 4 examiners • 0 of 4 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 8 patents granted in the last 365 days
Life Spine Inc. has 4 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These actions are spread across 4 distinct examiners, ensuring that each pending matter is handled by a different individual. The prosecution involves 2 distinct art units, suggesting that the 4 cases are grouped into two specific technical categories.
COMSTOCK, DAVID C is the busiest examiner with 1 pending office action. This matches the workload of the other examiners. The 4 pending office actions being reviewed in only 2 distinct art units means that each art unit is managing an average of two cases for the company.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 1 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 (25%) |
| Double-patenting + other | 1 (25%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 2 (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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| COMSTOCK, DAVID C | 1 | 86.5% | -8.4% |
| LAWSON, MATTHEW JAMES | 1 | 73.7% | +29.9% |
| GREEN, MICHELLE CHRISTINE | 1 | 83.2% | +11.8% |
| HOBAN, MELISSA A | 1 | 62.8% | +13.7% |
Cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate of 80%+ where the difficulty is Easy or Medium. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18400214 | EXPANDABLE IMPLANT ASSEMBLY | GREEN, MICHELLE CHRISTINE | 19d overdue |
| 19316248 | IMPLANT WITH BONE SCREW RETENTION | COMSTOCK, DAVID C | — |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19230432 | STEERABLE IMPLANT ASSEMBLY | LAWSON, MATTHEW JAMES | — |
| 17555011 | IMPLANT ASSEMBLY WITH EXPANDABLE IMPLANT AND PLATE | HOBAN, MELISSA 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 3 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18400214 | EXPANDABLE IMPLANT ASSEMBLY | GREEN, MICHELLE CHRISTINE | 19d overdue |
| 19230432 | STEERABLE IMPLANT ASSEMBLY | LAWSON, MATTHEW JAMES | — |
| 17555011 | IMPLANT ASSEMBLY WITH EXPANDABLE IMPLANT AND PLATE | HOBAN, MELISSA A | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3773 | 2 |
| 3774 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19316248 | IMPLANT WITH BONE SCREW RETENTION | COMSTOCK, DAVID C | 3773 | §102§103§112DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Sep 02, 2025 |
| 19230432 | STEERABLE IMPLANT ASSEMBLY | LAWSON, MATTHEW JAMES | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 06, 2025 |
| 18400214 | EXPANDABLE IMPLANT ASSEMBLY | GREEN, MICHELLE CHRISTINE | 3773 | §103 | Final Rejection | 19d overdue | Pending | Dec 29, 2023 |
| 17555011 | IMPLANT ASSEMBLY WITH EXPANDABLE IMPLANT AND PLATE | HOBAN, MELISSA A | 3774 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 17, 2021 |
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