Technology areas: Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
4 pending office actions • 2 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 4 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 10 patents granted in the last 365 days
Southco Inc. has 4 pending office actions in Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems. The matters involve 3 distinct examiners and 2 distinct art units, indicating repeated assignments at both the examiner and art-unit levels.
BROWN, EMILY GAIL is the busiest examiner, with 2 pending matters. Counsel can examine those matters together for consistent response strategy, while separately addressing the matter assigned to the other examiner and the different art-unit context.
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 (25%) |
| Double-patenting + other | 1 (25%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 2 (50%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| BROWN, EMILY GAIL | 2 | 75.3% | +16.5% |
| MERLINO, ALYSON MARIE | 1 | 64.6% | +31.2% |
| MCCALISTER, WILLIAM M | 1 | 69.2% | +19.6% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19024910 | LEVER COMPRESSION LATCH | MERLINO, ALYSON MARIE | — |
| 19020576 | ELECTRONIC LOCK | BROWN, EMILY GAIL | — |
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 4 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19237674 | ELECTRONICALLY ACTUATED AND LOCKING GLOVE BOX SYSTEM | BROWN, EMILY GAIL | — |
| 19024910 | LEVER COMPRESSION LATCH | MERLINO, ALYSON MARIE | — |
| 19020576 | ELECTRONIC LOCK | BROWN, EMILY GAIL | — |
| 19018316 | CAPTIVE FASTENER AND METHOD OF ASSEMBLING THE SAME | MCCALISTER, WILLIAM M | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3675 | 3 |
| 3753 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19237674 | ELECTRONICALLY ACTUATED AND LOCKING GLOVE BOX SYSTEM | BROWN, EMILY GAIL | 3675 | §103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 13, 2025 |
| 19024910 | LEVER COMPRESSION LATCH | MERLINO, ALYSON MARIE | 3675 | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 16, 2025 |
| 19020576 | ELECTRONIC LOCK | BROWN, EMILY GAIL | 3675 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 14, 2025 |
| 19018316 | CAPTIVE FASTENER AND METHOD OF ASSEMBLING THE SAME | MCCALISTER, WILLIAM M | 3753 | §102DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 13, 2025 |
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Start Free TrialSouthco Inc. has 4 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 2 art units and 3 examiners.
Emily Gail Brown has the most, with 2 of Southco Inc.'s pending office actions.
Mostly Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems (USPTO Tech Center 3600), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
