Prosecution Insights
Prosecution Insights
Technology areas: Chemistry & Materials • Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics
8 pending office actions • 1 client • 8 examiners • 5 art units • 0 of 8 (0%) have an AI response strategy ready • 22 patents granted in the last 365 days
Nields, Lemack & Frame, LLC - Varian operates in the Semiconductors, Circuits & Optics technology area. The firm has managed 280 career applications and currently oversees 7 pending office actions. These figures indicate the firm's historical experience and its current level of engagement with the USPTO. This data provides a baseline for understanding the firm's presence in this sector.
The firm's resolved allowance rate is 97.02. On average, the firm receives 2.74 office actions per allowance. Practitioners can use this average to estimate the frequency of examiner interactions required to reach a grant for applications in this portfolio. These metrics offer an overview of the firm's prosecution results.
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 | 2 (25%) |
| §102 only | 1 (12%) |
| Multi-statute (no §101) | 5 (62%) |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| KING, MONICA C | 1 | 84.6% | +6.6% |
| CHEN, BRET P | 1 | 84.5% | +16.4% |
| VANORE, DAVID A | 1 | 88.9% | +7.5% |
| LOGIE, MICHAEL J | 1 | 63.4% | +9.3% |
| NUCKOLS, TIFFANY Z | 1 | 45.5% | +40.1% |
| FORD, NATHAN K | 1 | 32.8% | +35.4% |
| GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | 1 | 64.4% | +38.8% |
| STOFFA, WYATT A | 1 | 79.4% | +22.8% |
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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 19261609 | ION SOURCE FOR CONTROLLING DECOMPOSITION BUILDUP USING CHLORINE CO-GAS | KING, MONICA C | — |
Multi-statute / §101-driven matters, or cases in front of an examiner with an allow rate under 30%. The top 5 ordered by deadline are shown.
| App # | Title | Examiner | Due in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18239988 | In-Vacuum Rotatable RF Component | FORD, NATHAN K | 29d |
| 18979741 | Patterned DLC Coating for High Temperature Electrostatic Chucks | CHEN, BRET P | — |
| 18633764 | Detection of Space Charge Effect During Ion Implantation | VANORE, DAVID A | — |
| 18387987 | XRAY DIFFRACTION ANGLE VERIFICATION IN AN ION IMPLANTER | LOGIE, MICHAEL J | — |
| 17740848 | HYBRID ION SOURCE FOR ALUMINUM ION GENERATION USING A TARGET HOLDER AND ORGANOALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS | 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 18107819 | System and Method for Reducing Particle Formation in a Process Chamber of an Ion Implanter | GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | 43d overdue |
| 18239988 | In-Vacuum Rotatable RF Component | FORD, NATHAN K | 29d |
| 18979741 | Patterned DLC Coating for High Temperature Electrostatic Chucks | CHEN, BRET P | — |
| 18370155 | PLASMA SOURCE WITH MULTIPLE EXTRACTION APERTURES | NUCKOLS, TIFFANY Z | — |
| 17740848 | HYBRID ION SOURCE FOR ALUMINUM ION GENERATION USING A TARGET HOLDER AND ORGANOALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS | STOFFA, WYATT A | — |
| Client (Assignee) | Pending OAs |
|---|---|
| Applied Materials | 8 |
| Art Unit | Apps |
|---|---|
| 2881 | 2 |
| 1716 | 2 |
| 1718 | 1 |
| 2878 | 1 |
| 2800 | 1 |
| App # | Title | Client | Examiner | Art Unit | Statutes | Status | Due in | AI | Filed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19261609 | ION SOURCE FOR CONTROLLING DECOMPOSITION BUILDUP USING CHLORINE CO-GAS | Applied Materials, Inc. | KING, MONICA C | §102Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Jul 07, 2025 | |
| 18979741 | Patterned DLC Coating for High Temperature Electrostatic Chucks | Applied Materials, Inc. | CHEN, BRET P | 1718 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Dec 13, 2024 |
| 18633764 | Detection of Space Charge Effect During Ion Implantation | Applied Materials, Inc. | VANORE, DAVID A | 2878 | §102§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Apr 12, 2024 |
| 18387987 | XRAY DIFFRACTION ANGLE VERIFICATION IN AN ION IMPLANTER | Applied Materials, Inc. | LOGIE, MICHAEL J | 2881 | §103§112 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Nov 08, 2023 |
| 18370155 | PLASMA SOURCE WITH MULTIPLE EXTRACTION APERTURES | Applied Materials, Inc. | NUCKOLS, TIFFANY Z | 1716 | §103 | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | Sep 19, 2023 |
| 18239988 | In-Vacuum Rotatable RF Component | Applied Materials, Inc. | FORD, NATHAN K | 1716 | §102§103 | Final Rejection | 29d | Pending | Aug 30, 2023 |
| 18107819 | System and Method for Reducing Particle Formation in a Process Chamber of an Ion Implanter | Applied Materials, Inc. | GOURLIE, LAURA ELOISE | 2881 | §103 | Final Rejection | 43d overdue | Pending | Feb 09, 2023 |
| 17740848 | HYBRID ION SOURCE FOR ALUMINUM ION GENERATION USING A TARGET HOLDER AND ORGANOALUMINIUM COMPOUNDS | Applied Materials, Inc. | STOFFA, WYATT A | 2800 | §102§103Other | Non-Final OA | — | Pending | May 10, 2022 |
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