Technology areas: Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals • Chemistry & Materials • Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics
5 pending office actions • 5 art units • 5 examiners • 0 of 5 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 4 patents granted in the last 365 days
West Virginia University manages a company patent portfolio in the Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals technology area. There are 5 pending office actions currently active. This level of activity reflects the university's ongoing efforts to protect its biological and pharmaceutical research. The focus on biotechnology and pharmaceuticals indicates that the pending intellectual property likely involves scientific discoveries or drug developments.
The 5 pending office actions are distributed across 5 distinct examiners and 5 distinct art units. This distribution shows variety in the examination process, as each pending action is being reviewed by a different person in a different technical section. The ratio of 5 actions to 5 examiners and 5 art units means there is no concentration of workload. For the practitioner, this requires managing 5 separate prosecution tracks without any overlap in examiner personnel or art unit expertise.
STOFFA, WYATT A is the busiest examiner for the university, currently handling 1 pending office action. Because there are 5 pending office actions and 5 distinct examiners, each examiner is responsible for 1 action. This even split across 5 distinct examiners and 5 distinct art units highlights the technical range of the university's pending applications. The legal strategy must be customized for each of the 5 different examiners to address their specific technical and procedural concerns.
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 |
|---|---|
| §103 only | 1 (20%) |
| §102 only | 1 (20%) |
| §112 only | 1 (20%) |
| Double-patenting + other | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| STOFFA, WYATT A | 1 | 79.3% | +22.3% |
| PIRO, NICHOLAS ANTHONY | 1 | 47.5% | +41.3% |
| HANEY, AMANDA MARIE | 1 | 36.5% | +45.0% |
| MACFARLANE, STACEY NEE | 1 | 53.7% | +39.5% |
| NGUYEN, NGHI V | 1 | 53.6% | +50.8% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18172780 | DEVICES AND PROCESSES FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY UTILIZING VIBRATING SHARP-EDGE SPRAY IONIZATION | STOFFA, WYATT 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 5 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 17066961 | FIBROBLAST GROWTH PATTERNS FOR DIAGNOSIS OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE | MACFARLANE, STACEY NEE | 74d overdue |
| 15107152 | CONVERGENCE OF AGGREGATION RATE WITH VALIDATED PERIPHERAL DIAGNOSTIC FOR ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE | NGUYEN, NGHI V | 69d |
| 18172780 | DEVICES AND PROCESSES FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY UTILIZING VIBRATING SHARP-EDGE SPRAY IONIZATION | STOFFA, WYATT A | — |
| 17706584 | SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES FOR RECOVERY OF HIGH-GRADE RARE EARTH CONCENTRATE FROM ACID MINE DRAINAGE | PIRO, NICHOLAS ANTHONY | — |
| 17251359 | PREDICTIVE 7-GENE ASSAY AND PROGNOSTIC PROTEIN BIOMARKER FOR NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER | HANEY, AMANDA MARIE | — |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2881 | 1 |
| 1738 | 1 |
| 1682 | 1 |
| 1675 | 1 |
| 1653 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 18172780 | DEVICES AND PROCESSES FOR MASS SPECTROMETRY UTILIZING VIBRATING SHARP-EDGE SPRAY IONIZATION | STOFFA, WYATT A | 2881 | §102§103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Feb 22, 2023 |
| 17706584 | SYSTEMS AND PROCESSES FOR RECOVERY OF HIGH-GRADE RARE EARTH CONCENTRATE FROM ACID MINE DRAINAGE | PIRO, NICHOLAS ANTHONY | 1738 | §102§103DP | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Mar 28, 2022 |
| 17251359 | PREDICTIVE 7-GENE ASSAY AND PROGNOSTIC PROTEIN BIOMARKER FOR NON-SMALL CELL LUNG CANCER | HANEY, AMANDA MARIE | 1682 | §112 | Final Rejection | — | Pending | Dec 11, 2020 |
| 17066961 | FIBROBLAST GROWTH PATTERNS FOR DIAGNOSIS OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE | MACFARLANE, STACEY NEE | 1675 | §103 | Final Rejection | 74d overdue | Pending | Oct 09, 2020 |
| 15107152 | CONVERGENCE OF AGGREGATION RATE WITH VALIDATED PERIPHERAL DIAGNOSTIC FOR ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE | NGUYEN, NGHI V | 1653 | §102 | Final Rejection | 69d | Pending | Jun 22, 2016 |
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Start Free TrialWest Virginia University has 5 pending office actions as of October 2026, spread across 5 art units and 5 examiners.
Wyatt A Stoffa has the most, with 1 of West Virginia University's pending office actions.
Mostly Biotechnology & Pharmaceuticals (USPTO Tech Center 1600), based on where its pending office actions are examined.
