Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems
16 pending office actions • 12 art units • 16 examiners • 0 of 16 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 51 patents granted in the last 365 days
Murata Machinery Ltd. has 16 pending office actions in the Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems technology area. The portfolio is spread across 16 distinct examiners and 12 distinct art units. This distribution of examiners and pending actions indicates a decentralized prosecution environment. For a company with 16 pending office actions, this lack of examiner overlap means that no single examiner's habits can be used to predict the outcome of more than one case. Practitioners must prepare for 16 different sets of examiner preferences and 12 different art unit standards.
NGUYEN, CUONG H is the busiest examiner, with 1 pending office action. While NGUYEN, CUONG H is the busiest, they only handle a portion of the total 16 pending office actions. The 12 distinct art units involved suggest that the company's mechanical innovations are technically diverse, requiring a broad range of expertise from the legal team. Navigating 12 distinct art units means the company must adhere to various internal USPTO policies and technical interpretations. With 16 distinct examiners, the company should expect a variety of prior art citations and legal rejections across the 16 pending office actions.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 3 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. 3 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 only | 1 (6%) |
| §103 only | 8 (50%) |
| §102 only | 1 (6%) |
| Double-patenting + other | 1 (6%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 5 (31%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| NGUYEN, CUONG H | 1 | 78.7% | +8.9% |
| SCHARPF, SUSAN E | 1 | 80.6% | +15.3% |
| RODRIGUEZ, JOSEPH C | 1 | 78.4% | +15.8% |
| SINGH, KAVEL | 1 | 83.7% | +14.0% |
| MCCARRY JR, ROBERT J | 1 | 81.8% | +16.8% |
| CROMER, ANDREW J | 1 | 75.9% | +18.0% |
| MITCHELL, NATHAN A | 1 | 73.0% | +10.0% |
| SPICER, JENINE MARIE | 1 | 51.1% | +19.0% |
| WAGGONER, TIMOTHY R | 1 | 71.6% | +7.7% |
| ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ, CARLOS R | 1 | 76.7% | +10.9% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18863722 | PICKING DEVICE | SINGH, KAVEL | — |
| 18863723 | TRANSPORT SYSTEM | MCCARRY JR, ROBERT J | — |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 6 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18844567 | AUTOMATED STORAGE SYSTEM AND LOAD STORAGE METHOD | MITCHELL, NATHAN A | 22d |
| 18860176 | TRANSPORT VEHICLE SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING TRANSPORT VEHICLES | NGUYEN, CUONG H | — |
| 19114858 | OVERHEAD CONVEYANCE VEHICLE | SCHARPF, SUSAN E | — |
| 18865833 | PICKING DEVICE | RODRIGUEZ, JOSEPH C | — |
| 18730896 | OPERATING APPARATUS AND DISPLAY METHOD | ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ, CARLOS R | — |
| 18708134 | OVERHEAD CONVEYING VEHICLE | DEVINE, MOLLY K | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18844567 | AUTOMATED STORAGE SYSTEM AND LOAD STORAGE METHOD | MITCHELL, NATHAN A | 22d |
| 18857663 | TRAVELING VEHICLE SYSTEM | CROMER, ANDREW J | 41d |
| 19114858 | OVERHEAD CONVEYANCE VEHICLE | SCHARPF, SUSAN E | — |
| 18865833 | PICKING DEVICE | RODRIGUEZ, JOSEPH C | — |
| 18863722 | PICKING DEVICE | SINGH, KAVEL | — |
| 18863723 | TRANSPORT SYSTEM | MCCARRY JR, ROBERT J | — |
| 18843925 | WAFER CONTAINER AND WAFER SUPPORT | SPICER, JENINE MARIE | — |
| 18730896 | OPERATING APPARATUS AND DISPLAY METHOD | ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ, CARLOS R | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3653 | 2 |
| 3747 | 1 |
| 3651 | 1 |
| 3615 | 1 |
| 3667 | 1 |
| 3627 | 1 |
| 3736 | 1 |
| 3654 | 1 |
| 3662 | 1 |
| 3652 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18860176 | TRANSPORT VEHICLE SYSTEM AND METHOD OF CONTROLLING TRANSPORT VEHICLES | NGUYEN, CUONG H | — | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 15, 2025 |
| 19114858 | OVERHEAD CONVEYANCE VEHICLE | SCHARPF, SUSAN E | 3747 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Mar 25, 2025 |
| 18865833 | PICKING DEVICE | RODRIGUEZ, JOSEPH C | 3653 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 14, 2024 |
| 18863722 | PICKING DEVICE | SINGH, KAVEL | 3651 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 07, 2024 |
| 18863723 | TRANSPORT SYSTEM | MCCARRY JR, ROBERT J | 3615 | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 07, 2024 |
| 18857663 | TRAVELING VEHICLE SYSTEM | CROMER, ANDREW J | 3667 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 41d | Pending | Oct 17, 2024 |
| 18844567 | AUTOMATED STORAGE SYSTEM AND LOAD STORAGE METHOD | MITCHELL, NATHAN A | 3627 | §101 | Final Rejection | 22d | Pending | Sep 06, 2024 |
| 18843925 | WAFER CONTAINER AND WAFER SUPPORT | SPICER, JENINE MARIE | 3736 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Sep 04, 2024 |
| 18839231 | CONVEYANCE SYSTEM | WAGGONER, TIMOTHY R | 3654 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 16, 2024 |
| 18730896 | OPERATING APPARATUS AND DISPLAY METHOD | ORTIZ RODRIGUEZ, CARLOS R | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 22, 2024 |
| 18708134 | OVERHEAD CONVEYING VEHICLE | DEVINE, MOLLY K | 3653 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 07, 2024 |
| 18700352 | PURGE SYSTEM | SHRIEVES, STEPHANIE ALEXANDRA | — | §103DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 11, 2024 |
| 18575283 | OVERHEAD CONVEYING VEHICLE | GLENN III, FRANK T | 3662 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 28, 2023 |
| 18573090 | TRANSPORT VEHICLE SYSTEM | MOSCOSO, JUAN SALVADOR | 3652 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Dec 21, 2023 |
| 18033394 | TRAVELING VEHICLE SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR CONTROLLING TRAVELING VEHICLE | ROBINSON, KITO R | 3664 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 24, 2023 |
| 18008693 | NON-CONTACT POWER SUPPLY DEVICE, CONVEYING SYSTEM, AND PARAMETER SETTING METHOD | KESSIE, DANIEL | 2836 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 38d overdue | Pending | Dec 07, 2022 |
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