Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
2 pending office actions • 0 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 1 patents granted in the last 365 days
The Middleby Corporation is managing 3 pending office actions in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These 3 actions are being reviewed by 3 distinct examiners, all of whom are located within 1 distinct art unit. This creates a situation where different individuals are applying the standards of a single departmental group to the company's pending applications.
David G Cormier is the busiest examiner for the company, with 1 pending office action. Since each of the examiners is handling one action, the workload is evenly split across the portfolio. The focus on 1 art unit suggests that the company's current pending applications are technically similar, even though they are being examined by different people. Practitioners should ensure that the arguments presented to David G Cormier and the other examiners are consistent with the overarching policies of their shared department.
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 (50%) |
| §112 only | 1 (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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CORMIER, DAVID G | 1 | 64.4% | +28.8% |
| PAIK, SANG YEOP | 1 | 65.5% | +16.3% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18977884 | AUTOMATED MULTI-BEVERAGE DISPENSER WITH SELF-CLEANING | CORMIER, DAVID G | — |
| 18420629 | CONTROL METHODS FOR INFRARED CONVEYOR OVENS | PAIK, SANG YEOP | — |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18977884 | AUTOMATED MULTI-BEVERAGE DISPENSER WITH SELF-CLEANING | CORMIER, DAVID G | — | §112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 11, 2024 |
| 18420629 | CONTROL METHODS FOR INFRARED CONVEYOR OVENS | PAIK, SANG YEOP | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jan 23, 2024 |
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