Task Cleanup After Importing Matters

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When patent and trademark matters are imported into AppColl, it will add a number of tasks (i.e., docketing items) to the matter. Tasks for prosecution history items will be preceded with ‘USPTO:’ and will always show up as closed items. Additionally, AppColl will create new tasks in response to the prosecution history of the matter. The number of tasks AppColl creates for a matter depends on the content of its prosecution history.

By default, AppColl will not generate to-do tasks (i.e., tasks requiring an affirmative step) if the due date for an item in the prosecution history is 9+ months past due. However, tasks will be created for items with due dates less than 9 months old. Some of these tasks may have already been completed, but the PTO does not include information to let AppColl record. For example, if the prosecution history shows that a Non-Final Office Action was mailed, AppColl will generate a “Respond to Non-Final Office Action – 3 Month Deadline’ task. If you already filed a response, you can simply mark the task as completed. But AppColl does not attempt to determine which items have already been done and auto-close these items.

In general, we recommend going through the open tasks for each and every imported matter and verify which tasks should be closed and which ones should remain open. While AppColl comprises dozens of task types, there are three specific tasks that are often created. These tasks are: