Technology areas: Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
3 pending office actions • 2 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 3 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 23 patents granted in the last 365 days
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. currently manages 3 pending office actions within the Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics technology area. These matters are distributed across 2 distinct art units, indicating a focused but varied technical scope for the company's current filings. The prosecution involves 3 distinct examiners, which suggests that each pending action is being handled by a different individual at the USPTO.
The busiest examiner for this portfolio is THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET, who is responsible for 1 pending office action. Since there are multiple pending actions in total and several distinct examiners, the workload is distributed across the assigned personnel. Practitioners should note that no single examiner holds a majority of the current workload, requiring individual strategies for each distinct art unit and examiner involved.
The presence of 2 distinct art units within the Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics sector implies that the company's innovations may span different classification specialties. With 3 pending office actions to address, the legal team must coordinate responses across these separate administrative divisions. Monitoring the specific tendencies of THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET and the other examiners will be essential for achieving successful outcomes in this technical field.
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 (33%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 2 (67%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET | 1 | 75.8% | +25.0% |
| CONNELLY, MICHELLE R | 1 | 80.0% | +13.1% |
| DONG, LIANG | 1 | 53.2% | +32.7% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18832022 | PACKAGE FOR OPTICAL FIBER, PACKAGED ARTICLE, AND OPTICAL FIBER LEAD-OUT METHOD | THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET | — |
| 18713842 | FUSION SPLICER | CONNELLY, MICHELLE R | — |
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 3 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18832022 | PACKAGE FOR OPTICAL FIBER, PACKAGED ARTICLE, AND OPTICAL FIBER LEAD-OUT METHOD | THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET | — |
| 18713842 | FUSION SPLICER | CONNELLY, MICHELLE R | — |
| 18573607 | OPTICAL-FIBER CUTTING DEVICE | DONG, LIANG | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2874 | 2 |
| 3724 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18832022 | PACKAGE FOR OPTICAL FIBER, PACKAGED ARTICLE, AND OPTICAL FIBER LEAD-OUT METHOD | THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET | 2874 | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 22, 2024 |
| 18713842 | FUSION SPLICER | CONNELLY, MICHELLE R | 2874 | §102§112 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 28, 2024 |
| 18573607 | OPTICAL-FIBER CUTTING DEVICE | DONG, LIANG | 3724 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 22, 2023 |
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Start Free TrialSumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. has 3 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 2 art units and 3 examiners.
Darby Margaret Thomason has the most, with 1 of Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd.'s pending office actions.
Mostly Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics (USPTO Tech Center 2800), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
