Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Chemistry & Materials • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
8 pending office actions • 4 art units • 8 examiners • 0 of 8 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 22 patents granted in the last 365 days
Signode Industrial Group LLC has 11 pending office actions in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These 11 actions are distributed across 5 distinct art units, showing that the company's mechanical innovations span several different technical classifications. The prosecution is decentralized, with 11 distinct examiners each handling a portion of the workload.
KATIE L GERTH is identified as the busiest examiner, and she is responsible for 1 pending office action. This reflects the distribution of the 11 pending actions across 11 distinct examiners. With 5 distinct art units involved, the company must adapt its strategy to various internal USPTO policies while managing the separate examiner relationships to resolve the 11 pending office actions.
The high ratio of 11 distinct examiners to 11 pending office actions ensures that no single examiner has a dominant impact on the portfolio. This diversity requires the company to be prepared for 11 different individual examination styles within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering sector. The 5 distinct art units further add to the complexity, as each unit may have its own specific trends and requirements for the 11 pending 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 | 1 (12%) |
| §102 only | 2 (25%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 5 (62%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| GERTH, KATIE L | 1 | 75.7% | +16.9% |
| MARTIN, VERONICA | 1 | 82.7% | +13.4% |
| HODGE, LINDA J | 1 | 87.5% | +27.3% |
| COLLINS, MICHAEL | 1 | 70.8% | +23.0% |
| PATEL, VISHAL I | 1 | 78.3% | +10.0% |
| PRESSLEY, PAUL DEREK | 1 | 60.5% | +28.1% |
| WHIPKEY, TARA NOELLE | 1 | — | — |
| TRAN, KHOI H | 1 | 54.9% | +16.9% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19133790 | Stretch-Hood Machine with Perforator | MARTIN, VERONICA | — |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 5 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19117876 | PALLET WITH STRAP CHANNELS, STRAPPING MACHINE, AND METHODS OF STRAPPING A LOAD | HODGE, LINDA J | 54d |
| 18910407 | RANDOM CASE SEALER | PATEL, VISHAL I | 76d |
| 19291194 | Stapling Device | GERTH, KATIE L | — |
| 18837059 | STRAPPING TOOL WITH DRAG TORQUE LOCK | PRESSLEY, PAUL DEREK | — |
| 18767487 | REINFORCED VOID FILLER | WHIPKEY, TARA NOELLE | — |
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 7 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18328979 | CASE-HANDLING SYSTEM WITH FLAP-SUPPRESSING AND FLAP-CLOSING DEVICES | TRAN, KHOI H | 32d overdue |
| 19117876 | PALLET WITH STRAP CHANNELS, STRAPPING MACHINE, AND METHODS OF STRAPPING A LOAD | HODGE, LINDA J | 54d |
| 18910407 | RANDOM CASE SEALER | PATEL, VISHAL I | 76d |
| 19291194 | Stapling Device | GERTH, KATIE L | — |
| 19133790 | Stretch-Hood Machine with Perforator | MARTIN, VERONICA | — |
| 18868731 | Automated Storage and Retrieval System | COLLINS, MICHAEL | — |
| 18837059 | STRAPPING TOOL WITH DRAG TORQUE LOCK | PRESSLEY, PAUL DEREK | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3731 | 3 |
| 1746 | 1 |
| 1781 | 1 |
| 3656 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19291194 | Stapling Device | GERTH, KATIE L | 3731 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 05, 2025 |
| 19133790 | Stretch-Hood Machine with Perforator | MARTIN, VERONICA | 3731 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 29, 2025 |
| 19117876 | PALLET WITH STRAP CHANNELS, STRAPPING MACHINE, AND METHODS OF STRAPPING A LOAD | HODGE, LINDA J | 3731 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | 54d | Pending | Apr 02, 2025 |
| 18868731 | Automated Storage and Retrieval System | COLLINS, MICHAEL | — | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 22, 2024 |
| 18910407 | RANDOM CASE SEALER | PATEL, VISHAL I | 1746 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | 76d | Pending | Oct 09, 2024 |
| 18837059 | STRAPPING TOOL WITH DRAG TORQUE LOCK | PRESSLEY, PAUL DEREK | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 08, 2024 |
| 18767487 | REINFORCED VOID FILLER | WHIPKEY, TARA NOELLE | 1781 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 09, 2024 |
| 18328979 | CASE-HANDLING SYSTEM WITH FLAP-SUPPRESSING AND FLAP-CLOSING DEVICES | TRAN, KHOI H | 3656 | §102Other | Non-Final OA | 32d overdue | Pending | Jun 05, 2023 |
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