Would be nice to have a deep link to Patentcenter next to the existing links at the top of the page (the matter files, tasks, ... references icons).

https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/{ApplicationNum_noformat}

I would love to hear how the USPTO's shutdown of EFS-Web and Private PAIR will affect AppColl. Last I remember the XML import of matters from PatentCenter was not a full replacement of importing Private PAIR XML data. Has that changed? Will a PatentCenter XML import provide everything AppColl needs for a complete patent matter? Are there any other impacts we should expect?

Would be helpful if AppColl could automatically calculate the expiration date of a patent once the issue date and PTA have been entered.

I understand AppColl's access system to be based around the traditional firm model: A firm buys licenses and assigns users that then have access to the firm's matters. In more agile environments that model is not ideal. For example, it is hard to work with part-time paralegals that support multiple firms. Or with off-counsel who uses AppColl herself.

It would be great if there were an option to share a matter with another AppColl user. One paralegal might log into AppColl with their ID, but access matters from different firms. On the flipside, a firm could work with 10 paralegals and off-counsel (all of which have their own AppColl accounts) without having to pay for licenses that are cost-prohibitive if the user only works on one or two cases.

Or does this option already exist and I just don't know about it?

@RichardS3059 Fair enough that AppColl won't be able to accurately calculate every expiration date. But it could still calculate a default date that will be correct for most patents. Even a human can't calculate the expiration date at issue accurately if the patent later becomes eligible for PTE.

Turns out the expression also requires curly brackets...

AND while the expression 'x<#{General.Now(-500d)}# using the 'PriorityDate' field in the matter is true.

@GeorgeJ4336 This is great!

Here is a small Python script to automate the "lightly edit" step:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import glob

path="C:\\Users\\WhereeverYourDownloadAppcollFilesInput\\"
f = next(glob.iglob(path+"*EPAS_*.txt")) # use a characterizing portion of filename 
print ("Processing file ",f)

tree = ET.parse(f)
root = tree.getroot()
conveyingparties=root.find("pat-conveying-parties")

print("Enter assignment execution date in yyyy-mm-dd format")
for conveyingparty in conveyingparties.findall("pat-conveying-party"):
    if (conveyingparty.find("individual/first-name").text == None):
        conveyingparties.remove(conveyingparty)
    else:    
        assignor=conveyingparty.find("individual/first-name").text+" "+conveyingparty.find("individual/last-name").text+": "
        executeddate=input(assignor)   
        conveyingparty.find("executed-date").text = executeddate   

tree.write(path+"_EPAS-upload.txt")     

I would love to hear how the USPTO's shutdown of EFS-Web and Private PAIR will affect AppColl. Last I remember the XML import of matters from PatentCenter was not a full replacement of importing Private PAIR XML data. Has that changed? Will a PatentCenter XML import provide everything AppColl needs for a complete patent matter? Are there any other impacts we should expect?

@gregg_appcoll That sounds good.

I understand AppColl's access system to be based around the traditional firm model: A firm buys licenses and assigns users that then have access to the firm's matters. In more agile environments that model is not ideal. For example, it is hard to work with part-time paralegals that support multiple firms. Or with off-counsel who uses AppColl herself.

It would be great if there were an option to share a matter with another AppColl user. One paralegal might log into AppColl with their ID, but access matters from different firms. On the flipside, a firm could work with 10 paralegals and off-counsel (all of which have their own AppColl accounts) without having to pay for licenses that are cost-prohibitive if the user only works on one or two cases.

Or does this option already exist and I just don't know about it?

@BruceY9453 Just started looking into this. US references could be obtained in JSON format from PatentCenter. Would not be too hard to convert to CSV for import into AppColl.

https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/retrieval/private/v2/applications/patentReferenceDocumentMetadata?applicationNumberText=15777677

Foreign references are going to be much harder to load automatically.

Would be nice to have a deep link to Patentcenter next to the existing links at the top of the page (the matter files, tasks, ... references icons).

https://patentcenter.uspto.gov/applications/{ApplicationNum_noformat}

Long been on my wish list, too.

@GeorgeJ4336 This is great!

Here is a small Python script to automate the "lightly edit" step:

import xml.etree.ElementTree as ET
import glob

path="C:\\Users\\WhereeverYourDownloadAppcollFilesInput\\"
f = next(glob.iglob(path+"*EPAS_*.txt")) # use a characterizing portion of filename 
print ("Processing file ",f)

tree = ET.parse(f)
root = tree.getroot()
conveyingparties=root.find("pat-conveying-parties")

print("Enter assignment execution date in yyyy-mm-dd format")
for conveyingparty in conveyingparties.findall("pat-conveying-party"):
    if (conveyingparty.find("individual/first-name").text == None):
        conveyingparties.remove(conveyingparty)
    else:    
        assignor=conveyingparty.find("individual/first-name").text+" "+conveyingparty.find("individual/last-name").text+": "
        executeddate=input(assignor)   
        conveyingparty.find("executed-date").text = executeddate   

tree.write(path+"_EPAS-upload.txt")     

I consider AppColl to be "business-critical" for the operation of my practice. Given increasing cyberthreats, I would like to move to a more robust two factor authentication than text and email. Texts are known to be susceptible to SIM swap attacks, and I would rather not have the security of a critical system depend on hundreds of employees at cell phone stores all following their company's policies. An authenticator app, or even better a FIDO2 hardware key, would be great.

@admin DOCX seems buggy. Saved the same form letter as DOCX and RTF. The RTF template fills correctly, the DOCX template does not.

@RichardS3059 Fair enough that AppColl won't be able to accurately calculate every expiration date. But it could still calculate a default date that will be correct for most patents. Even a human can't calculate the expiration date at issue accurately if the patent later becomes eligible for PTE.