Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Chemistry & Materials
1 pending office actions • 1 art units • 1 examiners • 0 of 1 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready
Merz+Benteli AG is currently navigating 1 pending office action in the Chemistry & Materials technology area. This matter is being handled by 1 distinct examiner, STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE, who is also identified as the busiest examiner for the portfolio. The prosecution is localized within 1 distinct art unit, which suggests a specialized focus for the company's current patent efforts. Having 1 pending office action means the applicant can focus entirely on the specific requirements of a single case. Because STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE is the sole examiner, the prosecution strategy does not need to account for varying examiner behaviors.
The concentration in 1 distinct art unit allows the applicant to monitor a specific set of examination trends within the Chemistry & Materials field. With 1 pending office action, the administrative complexity is limited, facilitating a direct and efficient response process. STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE is responsible for 1 pending office action, making this examiner the primary gatekeeper for the company's current intellectual property goals. Practitioners can leverage this focus to build a consistent rapport with the examiner. The absence of other pending actions or examiners simplifies the management of the portfolio and reduces the risk of inconsistent arguments across different filings.
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 (100%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE | 1 | 82.0% | +12.0% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18274790 | SILANE-TERMINATED POLYMERS | STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE | 34d |
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 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18274790 | SILANE-TERMINATED POLYMERS | STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE | 34d |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1766 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18274790 | SILANE-TERMINATED POLYMERS | STONEHOCKER, VIRGINIA LEE | 1766 | §103 | Final Rejection | 34d | Pending | Jul 28, 2023 |
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