Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics
16 pending office actions • 7 art units • 16 examiners • 0 of 16 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 19 patents granted in the last 365 days
Thermo Finnigan LLC is managing 16 pending office actions within the Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics technology area. This workload is handled by 15 distinct examiners, creating a broad distribution for the company's current legal strategy. The prosecution is situated within 7 distinct art units, reflecting a diverse technical focus for the pending applications.
The busiest examiner for this portfolio is SMITH, DAVID E, who is responsible for 2 busiest examiner pending office actions. As there are 16 pending office actions total, this examiner manages a portion of the current activity for Thermo Finnigan LLC. The alignment of 15 distinct examiners and 7 distinct art units suggests that the company is navigating multiple examination paths across different office departments.
Practitioners should note that the prosecution of the pending workload depends on the review of 15 distinct examiners. With 7 distinct art units involved, the prior art landscape is likely varied across different groups. The company's presence in Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics is currently represented by these interactions at the patent office.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 5 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. 5 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 (6%) |
| §101 + other | 1 (6%) |
| §103 only | 2 (12%) |
| §102 only | 2 (12%) |
| §112 only | 2 (12%) |
| Double-patenting only | 1 (6%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 6 (38%) |
| No statute on record | 1 (6%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| PHAN, RAYMOND NGAN | 1 | 93.7% | -6.6% |
| SMYTH, ANDREW P | 1 | 71.7% | +14.5% |
| GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | 1 | 64.4% | +38.8% |
| SMITH, DAVID E | 1 | 85.2% | +7.0% |
| IPPOLITO, NICOLE MARIE | 1 | 86.6% | +9.6% |
| WANG, JING | 1 | 100.0% | +0.0% |
| ALUNKAL, THOMAS D | 1 | 72.3% | +14.9% |
| HALL JR, TYRONE VINCENT | 1 | 76.4% | +23.7% |
| FITZSIMMONS, ALLISON G | 1 | 47.9% | +16.1% |
| OSENBAUGH-STEWART, ELIZA W | 1 | 73.0% | +16.7% |
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 8 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 | — |
| 18909067 | CARRIER GAS ION SCAVENGER TO REDUCE PEAK TAILING AND REACTIONS | GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | — |
| 18680984 | Varying Turbo Pump Speed to Optimize Pressure Levels within a Mass Spectrometer | WANG, JING | — |
| 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 6 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 | — |
| 18909067 | CARRIER GAS ION SCAVENGER TO REDUCE PEAK TAILING AND REACTIONS | GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | — |
| 18679001 | OPTIMIZATION OF ACQUISITION WINDOW WIDTH FOR TARGETED MASS SPECTROMETRY | ALUNKAL, THOMAS D | — |
| 18670574 | MODULE INSTALLATION TOOLS AND ASSOCIATED METHODS | HALL JR, TYRONE VINCENT | — |
| 18431305 | TRAINED NEURAL NETWORK MODEL TO DETERMINE CARTRIDGE AND SYSTEM HEALTH | FITZSIMMONS, ALLISON G | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2881 | 3 |
| 2857 | 3 |
| 2855 | 1 |
| 4100 | 1 |
| 1777 | 1 |
| 2878 | 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 | — | Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 10, 2024 |
| 18970586 | ION GUIDE GEOMETRY IMPROVEMENTS | SMYTH, ANDREW P | — | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 05, 2024 |
| 18909067 | CARRIER GAS ION SCAVENGER TO REDUCE PEAK TAILING AND REACTIONS | GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | — | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 08, 2024 |
| 18906049 | ADDITIVE MANUFACTURING OF AN ION OPTICAL DEVICE | SMITH, DAVID E | — | §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 |
| 18680984 | Varying Turbo Pump Speed to Optimize Pressure Levels within a Mass Spectrometer | WANG, JING | — | §103§112 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | May 31, 2024 |
| 18679001 | OPTIMIZATION OF ACQUISITION WINDOW WIDTH FOR TARGETED MASS SPECTROMETRY | ALUNKAL, THOMAS D | 2855 | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 30, 2024 |
| 18670574 | MODULE INSTALLATION TOOLS AND ASSOCIATED METHODS | HALL JR, TYRONE VINCENT | 4100 | §102 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 21, 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 |
| 18452308 | INTELLIGENT MAINTENANCE FOR SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS | CORDERO, LINA M | 2857 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 9d | Pending | Aug 18, 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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