Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Communications • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
3 pending office actions • 3 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 3 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 11 patents granted in the last 365 days
Synaptive Medical Inc. has 2 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These actions are split between 2 distinct art units, indicating that the current filings are being reviewed by different specialized groups. The portfolio involves 2 distinct examiners, meaning each pending matter is assigned to a different individual. This structure requires the company to maintain separate prosecution strategies within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering sector.
The examiner SHENG, CHAO is responsible for 1 pending office action. Since there are 2 pending office actions in total, the workload is distributed across the 2 distinct examiners and 2 distinct art units. This distribution requires the company to manage two separate prosecution tracks. With 2 distinct art units involved, the company must be prepared for different examination cultures. The presence of 2 distinct examiners ensures that no single individual's perspective controls the entire pending portfolio.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 2 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 |
|---|---|
| §103 only | 1 (33%) |
| §112 only | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| SHENG, CHAO | 1 | 64.4% | +26.8% |
| NEWAY, SAMUEL G | 1 | 75.1% | +7.2% |
| KISH, JAMES M | 1 | 62.4% | +11.8% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18471682 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGICAL INTERVENTIONS | KISH, JAMES M | 63d |
| 19345290 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RECEIVER COIL PLACEMENT GUIDANCE FOR INTRAOPERATIVE MRI | SHENG, CHAO | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3797 | 1 |
| 2657 | 1 |
| 3792 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19345290 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR RECEIVER COIL PLACEMENT GUIDANCE FOR INTRAOPERATIVE MRI | SHENG, CHAO | 3797 | §112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Sep 30, 2025 |
| 18622069 | VOICE-NUDGE SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR HANDS-FREE MOVEMENT OF A ROBOTIC SURGICAL MICROSCOPE | NEWAY, SAMUEL G | 2657 | §112 | Final Rejection | 31d overdue | Pending | Mar 29, 2024 |
| 18471682 | SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR MINIMALLY INVASIVE SURGICAL INTERVENTIONS | KISH, JAMES M | 3792 | §103 | Final Rejection | 63d | Pending | Sep 21, 2023 |
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