Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
3 pending office actions • 1 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 3 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 22 patents granted in the last 365 days
Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. currently has 3 pending office actions in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These 3 actions are distributed among 3 distinct examiners, meaning each pending matter is being handled by a different person. However, all 3 actions are located within 1 distinct art unit, which centralizes the administrative oversight of the portfolio. This concentration in 1 art unit suggests a very consistent technical classification for the company's current mechanical engineering filings.
THOMASON, DARBY MARGARET is the busiest examiner for the company, with 1 pending office action. Since there are multiple examiners for the 3 pending actions, the workload is evenly divided among the personnel. The fact that all examiners are within a single art unit indicates that while the individual reviewers differ, they all operate under the same supervisory group. This can lead to more uniform application of art unit policies across the active actions.
For a practitioner, the presence of 3 distinct examiners for the pending actions means there is no examiner-level consolidation. However, the use of only 1 art unit simplifies the administrative landscape. The busiest examiner handles exactly 1 of the total actions, matching the workload of the other examiners involved in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering portfolio.
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 | 72.4% | +23.9% |
| CONNELLY, MICHELLE R | 1 | 79.9% | +13.2% |
| DONG, LIANG | 1 | 53.2% | +32.9% |
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 |
|---|---|
| 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 | — | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 22, 2024 |
| 18713842 | FUSION SPLICER | CONNELLY, MICHELLE R | — | §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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