Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology area: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals
2 pending office actions • 1 art units • 1 examiners • 0 of 2 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready
Vellera Therapeutics Inc. is managing 2 pending office actions in the Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals technology area. Both of these actions are assigned to a single official, examiner LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND, who is the busiest examiner for the portfolio with 2 pending cases. The prosecution is entirely contained within 1 distinct examiner and 1 distinct art unit.
This extreme concentration means the company's current patent outcomes are fully dependent on the discretion of this official. Practitioners should focus on establishing a consistent dialogue with LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND across both pending matters. The involvement of only 1 distinct art unit indicates a very narrow and specialized focus within the biotechnology sector. Managing 2 pending office actions with the same examiner allows for a unified strategy, but it also increases the risk if the examiner maintains a rigid stance on the technology. Success will depend on navigating the specific technical requirements and procedural preferences of this single official.
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 |
|---|---|
| No statute on record | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND | 2 | 74.6% | +27.2% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18695464 | TREATMENT OF PRURITIS EMPLOYING ANTI-IL13Ra1 ANTIBODY OR BINDING FRAGMENT THEREOF | LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND | 39d |
| 18695502 | METHOD FOR TREATMENT OF MODERATE TO SEVERE ATOPIC DERMATITIS | LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND | 40d |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 1647 | 2 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18695464 | TREATMENT OF PRURITIS EMPLOYING ANTI-IL13Ra1 ANTIBODY OR BINDING FRAGMENT THEREOF | LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND | 1647 | Other | Non-Final OA | 39d | Pending | Mar 26, 2024 |
| 18695502 | METHOD FOR TREATMENT OF MODERATE TO SEVERE ATOPIC DERMATITIS | LOCKARD, JON MCCLELLAND | 1647 | Other | Non-Final OA | 40d | Pending | Mar 26, 2024 |
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