Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals • Chemistry & Materials • Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics
5 pending office actions • 5 art units • 5 examiners • 0 of 5 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready
The University of Durham has 4 pending office actions in the Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals technology area. These actions are spread across 4 distinct examiners and 4 distinct art units. This indicates a highly fragmented prosecution landscape where each matter is handled by a different individual and technical group. Such a distribution suggests that the portfolio's current legal challenges are spread across multiple specialized domains rather than being concentrated in a single area.
FERGUSON, LAWRENCE D is identified as the busiest examiner for this portfolio. However, this examiner is only responsible for 1 pending office action. This suggests that no single examiner holds a dominant share of the current workload. Practitioners should prepare for varied examination styles across the 4 distinct art units involved. Because each of the 4 distinct examiners is managing exactly one action, the prosecution strategy must be tailored to different sets of examiner preferences and technical interpretations simultaneously.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 3 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. 3 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 + other | 2 (40%) |
| §103 only | 1 (20%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 2 (40%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| FERGUSON, LAWRENCE D | 1 | 78.4% | +13.2% |
| HOLT, ANDRIAE M | 1 | 49.3% | +22.9% |
| SAWYER, JENNIFER C | 1 | 68.6% | -8.4% |
| BRYANT, REBECCA CAROLE | 1 | 64.8% | +32.5% |
| WALTERS JR, ROBERT S | 1 | 51.5% | +50.4% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 4 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18044759 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MEASUREMENT OF AN ANALYTE | BRYANT, REBECCA CAROLE | 91d overdue |
| 18563274 | LIQUID REPELLENT SLIPPERY SURFACES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION THEREOF | FERGUSON, LAWRENCE D | 30d overdue |
| 18040740 | MOLECULE-CONTAINING SURFACES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION THEREOF | WALTERS JR, ROBERT S | 14d |
| 18268852 | PLANT GROWTH PROMOTERS | HOLT, ANDRIAE M | — |
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 4 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18044759 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MEASUREMENT OF AN ANALYTE | BRYANT, REBECCA CAROLE | 91d overdue |
| 18563274 | LIQUID REPELLENT SLIPPERY SURFACES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION THEREOF | FERGUSON, LAWRENCE D | 30d overdue |
| 18040740 | MOLECULE-CONTAINING SURFACES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION THEREOF | WALTERS JR, ROBERT S | 14d |
| 18268852 | PLANT GROWTH PROMOTERS | HOLT, ANDRIAE M | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1781 | 1 |
| 1614 | 1 |
| 1691 | 1 |
| 2877 | 1 |
| 1717 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18563274 | LIQUID REPELLENT SLIPPERY SURFACES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION THEREOF | FERGUSON, LAWRENCE D | 1781 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | 30d overdue | Pending | Nov 21, 2023 |
| 18268852 | PLANT GROWTH PROMOTERS | HOLT, ANDRIAE M | 1614 | §101§102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 21, 2023 |
| 18036515 | METHOD OF SYNTHESIS | SAWYER, JENNIFER C | 1691 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 11, 2023 |
| 18044759 | METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR MEASUREMENT OF AN ANALYTE | BRYANT, REBECCA CAROLE | 2877 | §101§103 | Non-Final OA | 91d overdue | Pending | Mar 09, 2023 |
| 18040740 | MOLECULE-CONTAINING SURFACES AND METHODS OF PREPARATION THEREOF | WALTERS JR, ROBERT S | 1717 | §102§112 | Final Rejection | 14d | Pending | Feb 06, 2023 |
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