Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
4 pending office actions • 2 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 4 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 14 patents granted in the last 365 days
Mattel Inc. is managing 4 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These actions are handled by 3 distinct examiners across a pair of art units. This indicates some concentration of the workload among a small group of examiners, which may allow for more consistent interactions with the patent office. With 4 actions in only 2 art units, the company can expect a degree of consistency in the technical standards applied to its pending applications.
Kurt Fernstrom is the busiest examiner for the portfolio, overseeing 2 pending office actions. The remaining actions are split among the other examiners. Practitioners should leverage the fact that Kurt Fernstrom handles a significant portion of the pending matters to develop a more focused strategy within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering sector. This distribution across the 3 examiners and the art units requires a balance between addressing individual examiner preferences and adhering to departmental policies. Kurt Fernstrom is the only examiner with more than one pending action in this portfolio.
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 |
|---|---|
| §101 + other | 1 (25%) |
| §103 only | 2 (50%) |
| 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| FERNSTROM, KURT | 2 | 65.8% | +14.1% |
| LEGESSE, NINI F | 1 | 68.6% | +15.3% |
| STANCZAK, MATTHEW BRIAN | 1 | 39.2% | +35.5% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18772333 | TOY VEHICLE BODY AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING THE SAME | FERNSTROM, KURT | 62d |
| 18976735 | CONNECTOR FOR A TOY FIGURE | FERNSTROM, KURT | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18772333 | TOY VEHICLE BODY AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING THE SAME | FERNSTROM, KURT | 62d |
| 18976735 | CONNECTOR FOR A TOY FIGURE | FERNSTROM, KURT | — |
| 18931341 | ADJUSTABLE TOY FIGURE | LEGESSE, NINI F | — |
| 18659090 | TOY FIGURE WITH CONNECTOR FOR APPENDAGE | STANCZAK, MATTHEW BRIAN | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3715 | 1 |
| 3711 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18976735 | CONNECTOR FOR A TOY FIGURE | FERNSTROM, KURT | — | §101DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 11, 2024 |
| 18931341 | ADJUSTABLE TOY FIGURE | LEGESSE, NINI F | — | §103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 30, 2024 |
| 18772333 | TOY VEHICLE BODY AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING THE SAME | FERNSTROM, KURT | 3715 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | 62d | Pending | Jul 15, 2024 |
| 18659090 | TOY FIGURE WITH CONNECTOR FOR APPENDAGE | STANCZAK, MATTHEW BRIAN | 3711 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 09, 2024 |
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