Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Communications • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
11 pending office actions • 5 art units • 9 examiners • 0 of 11 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 31 patents granted in the last 365 days
Sonova AG is managing 12 pending office actions within the Communications technology area. These actions are distributed among 9 distinct examiners and 5 distinct art units. Katherine A. Faley is the busiest examiner, responsible for 3 pending actions. The ratio of 9 examiners to 12 actions suggests that while some examiners handle multiple cases, the majority of the workload is spread across different individuals.
The involvement of 5 distinct art units indicates that the company's communications technology spans several specialized examination groups. Practitioners should note that Faley's 3 pending actions represent the highest concentration of work for any single examiner in this portfolio. Navigating 5 different art units requires an understanding of various technical standards and examination policies. With 12 pending office actions, the company must coordinate its strategy across 9 different examiners to ensure consistency. This decentralized structure means that the outcomes of the 12 actions will depend on the individual perspectives of a group of 9 patent office officials.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 5 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. 5 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 | 4 (36%) |
| §102 only | 1 (9%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 6 (55%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| FALEY, KATHERINE A | 3 | 65.3% | +45.8% |
| YU, NORMAN | 1 | 87.6% | +13.9% |
| AL AUBAIDI, RASHA S | 1 | 77.8% | +11.4% |
| MONIKANG, GEORGE C | 1 | 75.3% | +7.1% |
| ZHU, QIN | 1 | 87.4% | +3.4% |
| YI, STELLA KIM | 1 | 71.0% | +28.5% |
| OGLES, MATTHEW ERIC | 1 | 50.0% | +57.0% |
| MUSTANSIR, ABID A | 1 | 78.5% | +10.3% |
| VOGT, JACOB BUI | 1 | 44.4% | +85.0% |
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.
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18099699 | Hearing Device, Hearing Device-Based Systems and Methods for Monitoring Glucose | MUSTANSIR, ABID A | 36d overdue |
| 18414005 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | 6d |
| 18439901 | Hearing Devices, Systems, and Methods for Measuring a Core Body Temperature of a User | OGLES, MATTHEW ERIC | 26d |
| 19018757 | RECEIVER FOR A HEARING INSTRUMENT AND METHOD OF PRODUCING IT | YU, NORMAN | — |
| 18816907 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | — |
| 18816863 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18099699 | Hearing Device, Hearing Device-Based Systems and Methods for Monitoring Glucose | MUSTANSIR, ABID A | 36d overdue |
| 18097955 | Systems and Methods for Optimizing Voice Notifications Provided by Way of a Hearing Device | VOGT, JACOB BUI | 4d overdue |
| 18414005 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | 6d |
| 18815232 | CARTRIDGE AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING AN EARPIECE | YI, STELLA KIM | 9d |
| 18439901 | Hearing Devices, Systems, and Methods for Measuring a Core Body Temperature of a User | OGLES, MATTHEW ERIC | 26d |
| 19018757 | RECEIVER FOR A HEARING INSTRUMENT AND METHOD OF PRODUCING IT | YU, NORMAN | — |
| 18978112 | DETERMINING ACOUSTIC MASS OF EARPIECE WITH MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHM | AL AUBAIDI, RASHA S | — |
| 18816907 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2693 | 3 |
| 3791 | 2 |
| 2691 | 1 |
| 1742 | 1 |
| 2653 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19018757 | RECEIVER FOR A HEARING INSTRUMENT AND METHOD OF PRODUCING IT | YU, NORMAN | — | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 13, 2025 |
| 18978112 | DETERMINING ACOUSTIC MASS OF EARPIECE WITH MACHINE LEARNING ALGORITHM | AL AUBAIDI, RASHA S | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 12, 2024 |
| 18932197 | Method and system for providing assistive listening | MONIKANG, GEORGE C | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 30, 2024 |
| 18924292 | Method and system for streaming a multichannel audio signal to a binaural hearing system | ZHU, QIN | 2691 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Oct 23, 2024 |
| 18816907 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | 2693 | §103§112Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 27, 2024 |
| 18816863 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | 2693 | §103§112Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 27, 2024 |
| 18815232 | CARTRIDGE AND METHOD FOR PRODUCING AN EARPIECE | YI, STELLA KIM | 1742 | §102 | Final Rejection | 9d | Pending | Aug 26, 2024 |
| 18439901 | Hearing Devices, Systems, and Methods for Measuring a Core Body Temperature of a User | OGLES, MATTHEW ERIC | 3791 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 26d | Pending | Feb 13, 2024 |
| 18414005 | Hearing system comprising at least one hearing device | FALEY, KATHERINE A | 2693 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 6d | Pending | Jan 16, 2024 |
| 18099699 | Hearing Device, Hearing Device-Based Systems and Methods for Monitoring Glucose | MUSTANSIR, ABID A | 3791 | §103§112Other | Final Rejection | 36d overdue | Pending | Jan 20, 2023 |
| 18097955 | Systems and Methods for Optimizing Voice Notifications Provided by Way of a Hearing Device | VOGT, JACOB BUI | 2653 | §103 | Final Rejection | 4d overdue | Pending | Jan 17, 2023 |
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