Import Prior Art References from Espacenet (Pending, Issued, U.S. and Foreign Applications)
AppColl integrates with EspaceNet to add or update prior art references for published and issued patents for both U.S. and foreign countries. To do this, go to the Matter Prior Art page for a matter and click the “Load Available Refs” button on the left side of the screen. Please Not : Private Pair does not provide an easy-to-access list of refere...
Mark Prior Art References as Not Needing to be Cited in an IDS
Prior art references associated with a matter, that have not been cited in an IDS or by an Examiner, will always show as needing to be cited in an IDS. There may be circumstances where art does not need to be cited, but the association between a matter and a reference is still required. If a reference has not been cited, it's added to the Cite Count...
Use a Citation Matrix to Verify Which Prior Art References Have Been Cited in Matter Familes
Matter Families can be complex entities having dozens of matters and perhaps 1000s of prior art references. AppColl provides a feature in the Prior Art module for downloading a Citation Matrix for a matter family and reviewing which references have been cited in which matters. Like the screenshot below, select one or more matters you wish to generat...
Import Prior Art References from a Spreadsheet
As of March 2018, AppColl now integrates with EspaceNet allowing you to retrieve already filed prior art references for issued matters. Click here for more details. The below process is still available and is necessary for pending matters. If you maintain prior art references in spreadsheets or other means outside of AppColl, you are able to impor...
Information Disclosure Statement Submitted Date
When working with Information Disclosure Statements in AppColl, you have two date fields available: IDS Date : Enter the date that the IDS was created in AppColl. Submitted Date : Enter the date the IDS was actually uploaded to the USPTO. Leave blank if IDS hasn't been submitted....
Cross-citing Prior Art References
Overview Cross-citing prior art references is the process of copying references in one or more (likely related) matters to another matter. You would typically do this when a new matter is added to a matter family, such as a continuation or divisional application. Normally you would want all references associated with the matter family to be copied...
Change the Citation Status of Prior Art
AppColl has a "Set Citation Status" button in Prior Art pages. This button can be used to manually change the status of one or more references. A popup window appears when one or more references are checked and the button is clicked. The popup window two sets of option groups: one to set the status of the reference relative to being cited in a...
De-duping Non-Patent Literature (NPL) Prior Art References
If you have multiple copies of an NPL reference, you can remove the duplicates and make sure that all matters, using this reference, point to the remaining version. This can be done automatically or manually. To access these features, click on the All References link in the Navigate section of the Prior Art module. There are two buttons called "R...
Add References that have Already Been Cited to the PTO
References that have already been cited to the PTO can be added into AppColl in a couple of different ways. Importing references from EspaceNet Please see this article. Import data from USPTO SBO8A EFS forms. If you have the original SB08A forms you submitted to the PTO (not the scanned copies in the image file wrapper in Pair), you can do the f...
Add or Update Links Between Multiple References and a Matter
The following steps outline the process for adding or updating links between multiple prior art references and a patent matter: In the Prior Art module, click on the All References link in the Navigate Section of the left column. Select all of the references you wish to link or update to the matter. (Using a filter on the “UsedBy” field may help f...
Copy Prior Art References from One Matter to Another
If you have a group of references cited in one matter and you wish to copy these references to another matter, follow these steps: Click on the Prior Art module button. Click on the row for the Matter you wish to move references from. Select (by clicking on the left check box) all of the references you wish to copy to another matter. Click on the Li...