Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
5 pending office actions • 2 art units • 5 examiners • 0 of 5 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 4 patents granted in the last 365 days
Nobel Biocare Services AG has 5 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These 5 pending matters are assigned to 5 distinct examiners. The portfolio's active applications are distributed across 2 distinct art units, suggesting a focused but divided technical scope within the medical devices sector.
The busiest examiner for the company is EIDE, HEIDI MARIE, who is responsible for 1 pending office action. Because there are 5 pending office actions and 5 distinct examiners, each examiner is currently handling exactly one matter. This even distribution across 2 distinct art units means that no single examiner dominates the current prosecution pipeline for the 5 pending office actions.
Practitioners should evaluate the 2 distinct art units to determine if there are differing examination standards affecting the portfolio. With 5 distinct examiners involved, the company must manage multiple individual examination styles. However, the concentration within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering area and the 2 distinct art units provides a relatively stable framework for developing prosecution strategies across the 5 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 |
|---|---|
| §103 only | 2 (40%) |
| §102 only | 1 (20%) |
| Double-patenting + other | 1 (20%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 1 (20%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| EIDE, HEIDI MARIE | 1 | 50.6% | +32.5% |
| BELK, SHANNEL NICOLE | 1 | 58.7% | +37.5% |
| DO, NHAT CHIEU Q | 1 | 64.0% | +48.9% |
| SAUNDERS, MATTHEW P | 1 | 47.0% | +38.2% |
| TO, HOLLY T | 1 | 47.9% | +32.9% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17620642 | DENTAL SCREW AND DENTAL FASTENING TOOL | TO, HOLLY T | 56d |
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 5 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18727360 | DENTAL IMPLANT | BELK, SHANNEL NICOLE | 44d overdue |
| 18967115 | DENTISTRY TOOL | EIDE, HEIDI MARIE | 46d |
| 17620642 | DENTAL SCREW AND DENTAL FASTENING TOOL | TO, HOLLY T | 56d |
| 18708546 | DRILL BIT | DO, NHAT CHIEU Q | — |
| 18060214 | DENTAL IMPLANT, INSERTION TOOL FOR DENTAL IMPLANT AND COMBINATION OF DENTAL IMPLANT AND INSERTION TOOL | SAUNDERS, MATTHEW P | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3772 | 4 |
| 3724 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18967115 | DENTISTRY TOOL | EIDE, HEIDI MARIE | 3772 | §102§103§112DP | Final Rejection | 46d | Pending | Dec 03, 2024 |
| 18727360 | DENTAL IMPLANT | BELK, SHANNEL NICOLE | 3772 | §103 | Final Rejection | 44d overdue | Pending | Jul 09, 2024 |
| 18708546 | DRILL BIT | DO, NHAT CHIEU Q | 3724 | §102 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 08, 2024 |
| 18060214 | DENTAL IMPLANT, INSERTION TOOL FOR DENTAL IMPLANT AND COMBINATION OF DENTAL IMPLANT AND INSERTION TOOL | SAUNDERS, MATTHEW P | 3772 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 30, 2022 |
| 17620642 | DENTAL SCREW AND DENTAL FASTENING TOOL | TO, HOLLY T | 3772 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | 56d | Pending | Dec 17, 2021 |
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