Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics • Transportation, E-Commerce & Mechanical Systems
5 pending office actions • 2 art units • 5 examiners • 0 of 5 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 5 patents granted in the last 365 days
WCM Industries Inc. is managing 4 pending office actions in the Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics technology area. Interestingly, while the portfolio involves 4 distinct examiners, all of these actions are concentrated within 1 distinct art unit. This suggests that while the company is interacting with multiple individuals, it is dealing with a single set of departmental policies and technical standards specific to that art unit.
The workload is evenly distributed among the examiners, with the busiest examiner, MURPHY, KEVIN F, responsible for 1 pending office action. Because each of the pending actions is assigned to a different person, the company must adapt its communication to different styles within the same technical group. This combination of high examiner diversity and low art unit diversity creates a unique prosecution environment where the technical field is consistent, but the individual perspectives on patentability may vary across the examiners within that single technical group.
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 |
|---|---|
| §103 only | 3 (60%) |
| Double-patenting only | 1 (20%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 1 (20%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| MURPHY, KEVIN F | 1 | 67.8% | +27.7% |
| LOEPPKE, JANIE MEREDITH | 1 | 55.3% | +29.0% |
| SULLIVAN, DEBRA M | 1 | 78.4% | +17.2% |
| WOOD, KIMBERLY T | 1 | 54.8% | +27.6% |
| EGOAVIL, GUILLERMO J | 1 | 89.8% | +8.5% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18483185 | WATER AND GAS UTILITY CONTROL SYSTEMS AND RETROFITTING KIT | EGOAVIL, GUILLERMO J | — |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18928849 | ROOFTOP EQUIPMENT SUPPORT AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE | SULLIVAN, DEBRA 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18820387 | ROOFTOP EQUIPMENT SUPPORT AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE | WOOD, KIMBERLY T | 44d overdue |
| 19298498 | SHOWER DRAIN ASSEMBLIES | MURPHY, KEVIN F | — |
| 19058896 | BATHTUB DRAIN CONNECTION SYSTEMS | LOEPPKE, JANIE MEREDITH | — |
| 18928849 | ROOFTOP EQUIPMENT SUPPORT AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE | SULLIVAN, DEBRA M | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 3631 | 1 |
| 2831 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19298498 | SHOWER DRAIN ASSEMBLIES | MURPHY, KEVIN F | — | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Aug 13, 2025 |
| 19058896 | BATHTUB DRAIN CONNECTION SYSTEMS | LOEPPKE, JANIE MEREDITH | — | DP | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Feb 20, 2025 |
| 18928849 | ROOFTOP EQUIPMENT SUPPORT AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE | SULLIVAN, DEBRA M | — | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 28, 2024 |
| 18820387 | ROOFTOP EQUIPMENT SUPPORT AND METHOD OF MANUFACTURE | WOOD, KIMBERLY T | 3631 | §103 | Non-Final OA | 44d overdue | Pending | Aug 30, 2024 |
| 18483185 | WATER AND GAS UTILITY CONTROL SYSTEMS AND RETROFITTING KIT | EGOAVIL, GUILLERMO J | 2831 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Oct 09, 2023 |
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