Technology area: Chemistry & Materials
2 pending office actions • 2 art units • 2 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready
Vanguard Automation GmbH has 2 pending office actions within the Chemistry & Materials technology area. These matters are distributed across 2 distinct art units, indicating that the company's chemical automation filings are being evaluated in different technical categories at the USPTO. This distribution across 2 art units suggests that the company's innovations fall into multiple technical classifications, each with its own examination standards.
There are 2 distinct examiners assigned to these cases, meaning each pending action is under the review of a different official. WHITESELL, STEVEN H is the busiest examiner for the company, currently managing 1 pending action. This relationship between examiners and pending actions means that the company must navigate the individual preferences and examination styles of different officials simultaneously, despite the small size of the active workload.
The lack of concentration in a single examiner or art unit requires a flexible approach to prosecution. Practitioners should be prepared for varied feedback, as each of the pending actions is subject to the specific standards of a different USPTO group. This decentralized structure ensures that the company's overall progress in the Chemistry & Materials sector is not solely dependent on the decisions of a single examiner.
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 |
|---|---|
| §103 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 1 | 82.0% | +12.9% |
| PATWARDHAN, ABHISHEK A | 1 | 73.9% | +13.1% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19079616 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR OPTICALLY PROCESSING AN OBJECT | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18838843 | PHOTONIC WIRE BONDING METHODS AND PROCESSES FOR THE ADVANCED PACKAGING OF PHOTONIC DEVICES AND SYSTEMS | PATWARDHAN, ABHISHEK A | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19079616 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR OPTICALLY PROCESSING AN OBJECT | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | — |
| 18838843 | PHOTONIC WIRE BONDING METHODS AND PROCESSES FOR THE ADVANCED PACKAGING OF PHOTONIC DEVICES AND SYSTEMS | PATWARDHAN, ABHISHEK A | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1759 | 1 |
| 1746 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19079616 | APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR OPTICALLY PROCESSING AN OBJECT | WHITESELL, STEVEN H | 1759 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Mar 14, 2025 |
| 18838843 | PHOTONIC WIRE BONDING METHODS AND PROCESSES FOR THE ADVANCED PACKAGING OF PHOTONIC DEVICES AND SYSTEMS | PATWARDHAN, ABHISHEK A | 1746 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 15, 2024 |
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Start Free TrialVanguard Automation GmbH has 2 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 2 art units and 2 examiners.
Steven H Whitesell has the most, with 1 of Vanguard Automation GmbH's pending office actions.
Mostly Chemistry & Materials (USPTO Tech Center 1700), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
