Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
2 pending office actions • 2 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 2 patents granted in the last 365 days
Tomy International Inc. currently has 2 pending office actions within the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These actions are distributed across 2 distinct art units, suggesting a variety of technical applications. The prosecution involves distinct examiners, meaning each pending action is being reviewed by a different individual. ELIZABETH J VOLZ is the busiest examiner for the company, currently responsible for 1 pending office action.
Since there are 2 pending office actions in total, the workload is split between the distinct examiners. This distribution across 2 distinct art units requires the company to manage multiple examiner styles and technical focuses simultaneously. For practitioners, the presence of the pending office actions in Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering highlights the ongoing development and protection of the company's mechanical innovations. Each of the distinct art units likely represents a different product line or technical improvement. Coordinating responses for the examiners ensures that the company's broader patent strategy remains coherent across different examination groups. The involvement of ELIZABETH J VOLZ as an examiner indicates the specific personnel the company must engage with to advance its 1 pending office action.
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 |
|---|---|
| §112 only | 1 (50%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| VOLZ, ELIZABETH J | 1 | 66.7% | +18.9% |
| DEERY, ERIN LEAH | 1 | 58.3% | +49.1% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18631383 | ADJUSTABLE INFANT TUB | DEERY, ERIN LEAH | 38d overdue |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18631383 | ADJUSTABLE INFANT TUB | DEERY, ERIN LEAH | 38d overdue |
| 18799252 | FLIP SPOUT DRINKING CONTAINER | VOLZ, ELIZABETH J | 14d |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3733 | 1 |
| 3754 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18799252 | FLIP SPOUT DRINKING CONTAINER | VOLZ, ELIZABETH J | 3733 | §112 | Final Rejection | 14d | Pending | Aug 09, 2024 |
| 18631383 | ADJUSTABLE INFANT TUB | DEERY, ERIN LEAH | 3754 | §102§103 | Non-Final OA | 38d overdue | Pending | Apr 10, 2024 |
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