Technology areas: Chemistry & Materials • Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering
2 pending office actions • 2 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 3 patents granted in the last 365 days
UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK currently has 2 pending office actions in the Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering technology area. These matters are distributed across 2 distinct examiners and 2 distinct art units. This suggests that the university's 2 pending office actions cover different technical areas within medical devices or mechanical engineering. The use of 2 distinct art units implies that the prosecution is not centralized in a single technical classification, reflecting a range of research and development.
RODRIGUEZ, WILLIAM H is the busiest examiner for this portfolio, with 1 pending office action. Since there are 2 distinct examiners for the 2 pending office actions, each examiner is handling exactly one case. This even distribution means that the university is interacting with two different individuals at the patent office simultaneously. For practitioners, this requires managing two separate examiner relationships and tailoring arguments to the specific technical standards of the 2 distinct art units involved in the prosecution.
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 |
|---|---|
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 2 (100%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| RODRIGUEZ, WILLIAM H | 1 | 90.1% | +3.4% |
| GORDON, BRIAN R | 1 | 65.3% | +19.0% |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 2 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18011811 | SAMPLE SEPARATING METHOD | GORDON, BRIAN R | 23d |
| 18405743 | SECUREMENT DEVICE FOR PIPES, CABLES OR CATHETERS | RODRIGUEZ, WILLIAM H | 42d |
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 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18011811 | SAMPLE SEPARATING METHOD | GORDON, BRIAN R | 23d |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3741 | 1 |
| 1798 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18405743 | SECUREMENT DEVICE FOR PIPES, CABLES OR CATHETERS | RODRIGUEZ, WILLIAM H | 3741 | §102§112Other | Non-Final OA | 42d | Pending | Jan 05, 2024 |
| 18011811 | SAMPLE SEPARATING METHOD | GORDON, BRIAN R | 1798 | §102§103§112 | Final Rejection | 23d | Pending | Dec 20, 2022 |
IP Author helps IP teams respond to office actions faster with AI-generated responses, examiner analytics, and prosecution intelligence.
Start Free TrialUNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK has 2 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 2 art units and 2 examiners.
William H Rodriguez has the most, with 1 of UNIVERSITY OF LIMERICK's pending office actions.
Mostly Medical Devices & Mechanical Engineering (USPTO Tech Center 3700), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
