Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals
3 pending office actions • 2 art units • 3 examiners • 0 of 3 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 5 patents granted in the last 365 days
The University of Utah is actively prosecuting matters within the Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals technology area. The portfolio currently includes 2 pending office actions, which are distributed among 2 distinct examiners. This distribution indicates that each examiner is handling a separate matter, as the busiest examiner, STOCKTON, LAURA LYNNE, is responsible for 1 pending office action. This arrangement requires the university to manage different examiner relationships simultaneously.
Despite having 2 distinct examiners, the portfolio is concentrated within 1 distinct art unit. This suggests that while the individual examiners differ, the subject matter of the pending office actions remains within a closely related technical field. The presence of the 2 pending office actions across 1 distinct art unit implies a consistent technical focus for the university's current biotechnology filings, allowing for some synergy in the prosecution strategy.
For the practitioner, the involvement of the distinct examiners means that responses must be tailored to different individuals, even though they operate within the same art unit. The busiest examiner pending count of 1 confirms that no single examiner dominates the current workload. This balanced distribution requires monitoring separate prosecution timelines for the matters to ensure all deadlines are met within the 1 distinct art unit.
Based on the USPTO statutory response window for each pending office action. 1 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 |
|---|---|
| §101 only | 1 (33%) |
| §102 only | 1 (33%) |
| §112 only | 1 (33%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| STOCKTON, LAURA LYNNE | 1 | 75.2% | +33.7% |
| STEPHENS, AMELIA CAROLE | 1 | 85.7% | +33.3% |
| WOITACH, JOSEPH T | 1 | 49.9% | +28.3% |
Cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate of 80%+ where the difficulty is Easy or Medium. The top 1 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18397180 | VACCINATION AGAINST FUNGAL EPITOPES TO PREVENT INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES | STEPHENS, AMELIA CAROLE | 2d overdue |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17520037 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR GENOME ANALYSIS | WOITACH, JOSEPH T | — |
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 3 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18397180 | VACCINATION AGAINST FUNGAL EPITOPES TO PREVENT INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES | STEPHENS, AMELIA CAROLE | 2d overdue |
| 18725391 | ANTIMICROBIAL COMPOUNDS AND METHODS | STOCKTON, LAURA LYNNE | — |
| 17520037 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR GENOME ANALYSIS | WOITACH, JOSEPH T | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1645 | 1 |
| 1631 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18725391 | ANTIMICROBIAL COMPOUNDS AND METHODS | STOCKTON, LAURA LYNNE | — | §112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jun 28, 2024 |
| 18397180 | VACCINATION AGAINST FUNGAL EPITOPES TO PREVENT INFLAMMATORY BOWEL DISEASES | STEPHENS, AMELIA CAROLE | 1645 | §102Other | Final Rejection | 2d overdue | Pending | Dec 27, 2023 |
| 17520037 | METHODS AND SYSTEMS FOR GENOME ANALYSIS | WOITACH, JOSEPH T | 1631 | §101 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 05, 2021 |
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