I'm under the impression that they just wait out the time, and if there's no statement submitted, that's it.

You may recall my hope that our team would send a letter early on simply stating that we had no intent to provide a statement, thus perhaps allowing things to move along without delay. I now suspect such action was not an option - not acceptable to the PTO (which may have had prior experience with a patent owner changing their mind at the last minute, submitting a statement at the eleventh hour AFTER the exmainer had begun to act but before the 60 days had elapsed, thus fouling the process).

FWIW,

SGE