Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Chemistry & Materials
2 pending office actions • 2 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 3 patents granted in the last 365 days
Sumitomo Electric Toyama Co. Ltd. maintains a patent portfolio in the Chemistry & Materials technology area. The company currently has 2 pending office actions. These actions are handled by 2 distinct examiners, including ZHENG, LOIS L, who is the busiest examiner for the portfolio.
The prosecution is distributed across distinct art units. ZHENG, LOIS L is responsible for 1 pending office action. Since the pending actions are split between the involved individuals, this distribution requires the legal team to monitor separate sets of examiner behaviors and art unit guidelines.
The presence of 1 pending office action under the busiest examiner indicates that no single individual dominates the portfolio's current prosecution. Practitioners should tailor their responses to the specific technical requirements of the distinct art units. The focus on Chemistry & Materials suggests that the pending matters likely involve specialized material science or chemical processing techniques.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 1 of the docket's apps have a known mailing date; the rest are excluded from the tile counts.
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 |
|---|---|
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 2 (100%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| ZHENG, LOIS L | 1 | 67.6% | +13.0% |
| KENLAW, GRACE A | 1 | 50.8% | +37.7% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18289403 | ALUMINUM ALLOY, ALUMINUM ALLOY WIRE, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING ALUMINUM ALLOY WIRE | ZHENG, LOIS L | 33d |
| 18021998 | NICKEL-CHROMIUM POROUS BODY AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING NICKEL-CHROMIUM POROUS BODY | KENLAW, GRACE 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 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18289403 | ALUMINUM ALLOY, ALUMINUM ALLOY WIRE, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING ALUMINUM ALLOY WIRE | ZHENG, LOIS L | 33d |
| 18021998 | NICKEL-CHROMIUM POROUS BODY AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING NICKEL-CHROMIUM POROUS BODY | KENLAW, GRACE A | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1733 | 1 |
| 1723 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18289403 | ALUMINUM ALLOY, ALUMINUM ALLOY WIRE, AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING ALUMINUM ALLOY WIRE | ZHENG, LOIS L | 1733 | §102§103§112 | Final Rejection | 33d | Pending | Nov 03, 2023 |
| 18021998 | NICKEL-CHROMIUM POROUS BODY AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURING NICKEL-CHROMIUM POROUS BODY | KENLAW, GRACE A | 1723 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Feb 17, 2023 |
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