Technology area: Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics
13 pending office actions • 7 art units • 12 examiners • 0 of 13 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 21 patents granted in the last 365 days
Thermo Finnigan LLC has 14 pending office actions in Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics. The portfolio spans 13 distinct examiners and 8 distinct art units, indicating broad examiner dispersion and meaningful technical-group distribution. Coordination will need to address variation in both examiner practice and art-unit context.
CHOI, JAMES J is the busiest examiner, with 2 pending matters. That assignment offers a limited point of concentration for targeted review, but most actions remain distributed elsewhere. Counsel should use centralized issue tracking while preserving separate response strategies for the different examination settings.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 4 of the docket's apps have a known mailing date; the rest are excluded from the tile counts.
Every pending office action with a known statutory deadline, placed on a days-until-due axis. Dots left of Today are overdue; the further right, the more runway. Cases that share a deadline window stack vertically. 4 of the docket's apps have a known mailing date.
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 |
|---|---|
| §101 only | 1 (8%) |
| §101 + other | 1 (8%) |
| §103 only | 2 (15%) |
| §112 only | 2 (15%) |
| Double-patenting only | 1 (8%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 5 (38%) |
| No statute on record | 1 (8%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| CHOI, JAMES J | 2 | 68.3% | +44.9% |
| PHAN, RAYMOND NGAN | 1 | 93.7% | -6.6% |
| SMYTH, ANDREW P | 1 | 71.7% | +14.6% |
| SMITH, DAVID E | 1 | 85.3% | +6.9% |
| IPPOLITO, NICOLE MARIE | 1 | 86.7% | +9.5% |
| SCHMITT, BENJAMIN R | 1 | 84.2% | +16.0% |
| FITZSIMMONS, ALLISON G | 1 | 48.1% | +16.0% |
| OSENBAUGH-STEWART, ELIZA W | 1 | 73.0% | +16.8% |
| NAFOOSHE, SAEEDE | 1 | — | — |
| EINHORN, MICA JILLIAN | 1 | 80.0% | +25.0% |
Cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate of 80%+ where the difficulty is Easy or Medium. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18906049 | ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING OF AN ION OPTICAL DEVICE | SMITH, DAVID E | — |
| 18794310 | MULTIPLEXED ION PRE-SEPARATION FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY | IPPOLITO, NICOLE MARIE | — |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 7 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17778805 | REMOTE MONITORING, TROUBLESHOOTING AND SERVICE SCHEDULING OF ANALYTICAL APPARATUSES | LAKHANI, ANDREW C | 32d overdue |
| 18307463 | ACCESSING LARGE DATA STRUCTURES GENERATED BY SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS | NIMOX, RAYMOND LONDALE | 15d |
| 18538840 | VACUUM SYSTEM FOR A MASS SPECTROMETER | OSENBAUGH-STEWART, ELIZA W | 27d |
| 18970586 | ION GUIDE GEOMETRY IMPROVEMENTS | SMYTH, ANDREW P | — |
| 18671286 | ELECTROCHEMICAL CORROSION-RESISTANT CONNECTOR FOR A LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY SYSTEM | SCHMITT, BENJAMIN R | — |
| 18431305 | TRAINED NEURAL NETWORK MODEL TO DETERMINE CARTRIDGE AND SYSTEM HEALTH | FITZSIMMONS, ALLISON G | — |
| 18473049 | DEUTERIUM GAS GENERATOR AND DEVICES FOR CONSERVATION THEREOF | EINHORN, MICA JILLIAN | — |
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 7 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18538840 | VACUUM SYSTEM FOR A MASS SPECTROMETER | OSENBAUGH-STEWART, ELIZA W | 27d |
| 18970586 | ION GUIDE GEOMETRY IMPROVEMENTS | SMYTH, ANDREW P | — |
| 18671286 | ELECTROCHEMICAL CORROSION-RESISTANT CONNECTOR FOR A LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY SYSTEM | SCHMITT, BENJAMIN R | — |
| 18431305 | TRAINED NEURAL NETWORK MODEL TO DETERMINE CARTRIDGE AND SYSTEM HEALTH | FITZSIMMONS, ALLISON G | — |
| 18473049 | DEUTERIUM GAS GENERATOR AND DEVICES FOR CONSERVATION THEREOF | EINHORN, MICA JILLIAN | — |
| 18335929 | CYCLE TIMER FOR IMPROVED PURITY OF REAGENT GAS SYSTEMS | CHOI, JAMES J | — |
| 17825230 | Mass Spectrometer Utilizing Mass Spectral Database Search for Compound Identification | CHOI, JAMES J | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2881 | 4 |
| 2878 | 3 |
| 2857 | 2 |
| 2175 | 1 |
| 2852 | 1 |
| 1777 | 1 |
| 3629 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18976061 | TECHNIQUES FOR SEGMENTATION OF DATA PROCESSING WORKFLOWS IN INSTRUMENT SYSTEMS | PHAN, RAYMOND NGAN | 2175 | Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 10, 2024 |
| 18970586 | ION GUIDE GEOMETRY IMPROVEMENTS | SMYTH, ANDREW P | 2878 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 05, 2024 |
| 18906049 | ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING OF AN ION OPTICAL DEVICE | SMITH, DAVID E | 2881 | §112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 03, 2024 |
| 18794310 | MULTIPLEXED ION PRE-SEPARATION FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY | IPPOLITO, NICOLE MARIE | 2881 | DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 05, 2024 |
| 18671286 | ELECTROCHEMICAL CORROSION-RESISTANT CONNECTOR FOR A LIQUID CHROMATOGRAPHY SYSTEM | SCHMITT, BENJAMIN R | 2852 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 22, 2024 |
| 18431305 | TRAINED NEURAL NETWORK MODEL TO DETERMINE CARTRIDGE AND SYSTEM HEALTH | FITZSIMMONS, ALLISON G | 1777 | §101§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Feb 02, 2024 |
| 18538840 | VACUUM SYSTEM FOR A MASS SPECTROMETER | OSENBAUGH-STEWART, ELIZA W | 2881 | §103§112 | Final Rejection | 27d | Pending | Dec 13, 2023 |
| 18487306 | METHOD USING REINFORCEMENT LEARNING TO CONTROL A MASS SPECTROMETER | NAFOOSHE, SAEEDE | 2857 | §103 | Final Rejection | 27d | Pending | Oct 16, 2023 |
| 18473049 | DEUTERIUM GAS GENERATOR AND DEVICES FOR CONSERVATION THEREOF | EINHORN, MICA JILLIAN | 2881 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Sep 22, 2023 |
| 18335929 | CYCLE TIMER FOR IMPROVED PURITY OF REAGENT GAS SYSTEMS | CHOI, JAMES J | 2878 | §103 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Jun 15, 2023 |
| 18307463 | ACCESSING LARGE DATA STRUCTURES GENERATED BY SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS | NIMOX, RAYMOND LONDALE | 2857 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | 15d | Pending | Apr 26, 2023 |
| 17825230 | Mass Spectrometer Utilizing Mass Spectral Database Search for Compound Identification | CHOI, JAMES J | 2878 | §112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 26, 2022 |
| 17778805 | REMOTE MONITORING, TROUBLESHOOTING AND SERVICE SCHEDULING OF ANALYTICAL APPARATUSES | LAKHANI, ANDREW C | 3629 | §101 | Final Rejection | 32d overdue | Pending | May 20, 2022 |
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Start Free TrialThermo Finnigan LLC has 13 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 7 art units and 12 examiners.
James J Choi has the most, with 2 of Thermo Finnigan LLC's pending office actions.
Mostly Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics (USPTO Tech Center 2800), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
