The Review USPTO Differences task/yellow triangular warning is very useful, but it is also very cumbersome--I would like to ask if it can be made "smarter." In particular, I would like to suggest that it be modified so that if a flagged difference is reviewed and the user selects "Ignore" (or maybe make a new button that is "Ignore Forever"), then any future instance for that matter in which that same discrepancy is found will also be ignored.

We are faced with the situation where almost every time we PAIR scrape a matter, we get USPTO differences--and we spend an inordinate amount of time revisiting the same issues over and over and over.

For example, our docket numbers almost never actually align with what the USPTO has because we use our docket number + our client's docket number in PAIR (clients want us to do this, particularly on shared customer numbers--I'm sure we are not alone in this).

Another example is with PCT priority connections--we store the full PCT serial number in AppColl, e.g., PCT/US2015/012345, while the USPTO (for reasons I cannot fathom) stores the same serial number in the abbreviated form as PCT/US15/12345. These are identical serial numbers, but get repeatedly flagged as being "discrepancies"--every time AppColl flags these, we have to go through the process of reviewing and re-ignoring this discrepancy.

A third example is with Examiner names--the USPTO uses first name, middle initial with no period, LAST IN ALL CAPS. We use first, middle initial with period, last in normal caps. These seem to get flagged every time as well.

If the USPTO discrepancies feature/task weren't so useful, we'd likely turn off the task since it generates a massive amount of tedious work that we have to repeatedly do every time there's a PAIR scrape for a matter. If AppColl could be modified to make some sort of "whitelist" table (akin to the Contact "aliases" field) for each matter that stored each "ignored" value and then did not flag that value again if it showed up in a subsequent scrape for that matter, it would make this feature SOOOOOOO much better/more useful.

Can this be done?

AppColl has a "Trash" that deleted items get sent to; items in the Trash can be selectively undeleted if desired. The trash can also be emptied to permanently delete items.

However, there are some aspects of trash that could be vastly improved:

a) For the love of God, make deleting trash items a background task. Right now, if you delete items, you can expect to wait ~3+ minutes/1000 items, and the poor schmuck doing it can't really do anything else in AppColl while the deleting is occurring.

b) The trash should be able to be filtered. For example, I'd like to be able to delete all items in the trash that are more than a month old, but the only way to do that is to go through every page of trash items more than a month old, select all items, and then delete them. At 120 pages of trash items, I'm looking at a minimum of six hours spent doing this, with me having to interact with the system every 3 minutes.

c) Add a setting that lets admins specify a default "permanently delete" age where AppColl automatically permanently deletes items in the trash that are over X days old.

And a minor quibble:

d) There are two buttons: "Permanently Delete" and "Empty Trash." They do the same thing, except that the former only deletes the items that are selected and the latter deletes ALL items in the trash. Maybe they should be relabeled "Permanently Delete Selected Items" and "Permanently Delete ALL Items."

The USPTO is instituting new fees on continuations/divisionals/CIPs January 19, 2025, that are based on how long ago the "EBD" (earliest benefit date) for the application is. The EBD is the earliest US non-provisional date that the continuing application claims priority benefit to (a PCT application is viewed as a US non-provisional). If the EBD is more than 6 years ago and no more than 9 years ago, a $2700 fee is due (undiscounted). If more than 9 years ago, then the fee is $4000. Federal register notice is here.

It would be very helpful if AppColl could have fields that indicate the EBD and the number of years since the EBD for each US non-provisional application (or at least, each continuing application). Such fields would ideally be available via the Matters Reports interface so that we can generate reports with the data.

The EBD would be calculated by looking at each US non-provisional application listed as a priority connection for such an application and then using the earliest filing date for those connections as the EBD.

NOTE: The Federal Register does note that if priority to a US provisional is claimed using 35 USC 120 instead of 35 USC 119, then such a provisional would be considered for the EBD. Since AppColl doesn't track what kind of benefit claim is made, it technically does not know if a provisional should or should not be included in the EBD calculation. However, I am unaware of any scenario in which anyone would actually want to claim priority benefit to a provisional using 35 USC 120, and AppColl's working assumption when filling out ADSs is to use 35 USC 119, so I think it is safe to assume that any provisionals that are in the priority chain were claimed via 35 USC 119 and thus should not be considered in the EBD calculation.

Can this be done?

Christian

It would be great if users could be given the ability to specify "aliases" to use for column names in a report. These could be displayed in addition to the "normal" column names (or not at all) when viewing the report in AppColl, but if the report is emailed to someone, exported to CSV/PDF, etc., the aliases would be used for the column names instead of the AppColl field names.

Thus, for example, if one sets up a Task report that is intended to be sent to client DeltaCorp on a recurring basis, the "Matter.ClientRef" column could be set up to be labeled "Delta Ref." instead, and the "RefDate" column labeled as "Mail Date," and the Matter.CountryCode column labeled as "Ctry.," and so forth. In that last example, it would allow the report to be much more compact since the column header of "Matter.CountryCode" is much wider than the 2-letter country codes that would be listed under it.

Such a feature would significantly improve the Reports function and eliminate repetitive reformatting/relabeling of the report columns prior to sending such reports to clients.

These aliases, of course, would be cosmetic and would not be usable as filter conditions--it might be nice to display them in AppColl's on-screen displays of reports that use them, but I could also see implementing the feature so that the aliases only appear in the report once it "leaves" AppColl.

@joe-appcoll-com
Yes--add:

a) the ability to allow the admin for account receiving the sync to review what fields are in the sync report and, for each such field, designate which field in the receiving account's database the sync report field will be imported into (including giving the admin the ability to direct that the synced field NOT be imported into any field in the database of the receiving account). This will vastly improve the Sync feature since it will allow users to map imports between different fields, e.g., law firm uses "AttorneyRef" to store their docket number and ClientRef to store client's docket number, while client uses "ClientRef" to store law firm's docket number and "AttorneyRef" to store their own docket number. It should be possible for either party to set up a Sync of either field and have the receiving party direct that Sync to the field that stores that same data--even if they are different field names in each account.

b) disable any new or modified sync into an account until (a) has been done--this avoids potential catastrophe that may occur if a sync is set up and the underlying report for it is then modified and ends up overwriting data in the recipient's account that was not supposed to be synced.

I suggested this to AppColl directly earlier and know this is being worked on, but figured I'd float here to get feedback from others.

Cheers,
Christian

It would be nice if there was a single form letter field that could be used to add all inventors to an email's TO line. Right now, if you want to add all inventors to an email generated within AppColl, you have to use this:

{Matter.Inventor1.Email};{Matter.Inventor2.Email};{Matter.Inventor3.Email};{Matter.Inventor4.Email};{Matter.Inventor5.Email};{Matter.Inventor6.Email};{Matter.Inventor7.Email};{Matter.Inventor8.Email};{Matter.Inventor9.Email};{Matter.Inventor10.Email};{Matter.Inventor11.Email};{Matter.Inventor12.Email};{Matter.Inventor13.Email};{Matter.Inventor14.Email};{Matter.Inventor15.Email};{Matter.Inventor16.Email};{Matter.Inventor17.Email};{Matter.Inventor18.Email};{Matter.Inventor19.Email};{Matter.Inventor20.Email}

And if you have more than 20 inventors (god forbid!), you're out of luck.

It would be really nice if AppColl just had a field like:

{Matter.Inventors.Email}

...that would add emails for all the inventors to the form letter/email template (separated by semicolons).

This somewhat aligns with another suggestion made on May 13, 2022, for a field like {InventorFirstNames}, which would concatenate a string of inventor first names together (and add commas and "and" where appropriate).

Cheers,
Christian

The new chat-style Discussion feature is great! We are looking forward to using it. A few suggestions for improving it:

a) Make the chat-style Discussions be accessible via fields in Reports and Email/Form Letters. When this is done, please make it so that there are not double or triple carriage returns between each line, as that will make the data take up much more space. (This is done; thanks!)

b) Make the chat-style Comments for Tasks be visible in the table Task View of Matter Details as a column. (This is also done; thanks again!)

c) Create a feature that allows for bulk and/or automated deletion of Comments. For example, it would be nice to give Admins the ability to run a Matter report and then have a button that allows the Admin to delete all Comments for all of the Matters (and, optionally, Tasks in those Matters) listed in the report without needing to go into each matter/task and individually delete every comment, which seems to be the only way to get rid of them now.... (NOTE: The ability to exclude the chat-style Comments from the transaction log is noted and welcome).

Cheers,
Christian

It would be a very nice feature if there were an "AdjustedExpirationDate" field that was simply the ExpirationDate field + PTA. This would not be user editable; it would be calculated based on whatever was entered into the ExpirationDate and PTA fields.

Right now, AppColl automatically changes the "Status" of "Issued" patents to "Expired" when the expiration date is reached. However, patents with PTA do not expire on their expiration date, they expire later. This can be very problematic, as if a report having the application status is generated from AppColl and provided to, for example, CPI or some other annuity service, it will incorrectly tell the annuity service that an application is expired when it is actually not. This may cause the annuity service to assume that maintenance fees no longer need to be paid, and the service will no longer request payment instructions for it.

This is problematic when trying to generate a report, for example, of all patents that may have maintenance fees that need to be paid. You'd want to include all patents with "Issued" status, but also all patents with "Expired" status that still had PTA left. Unfortunately, there is no easy way to do this right now. If the AdjustedExpirationDate field existed, we could simply filter on all patents with Issued status OR Expired status with AdjustedExpirationDate > today.

The only other option is to manually edit the ExpirationDate field to include the PTA, but that would be non-preferred since it introduces a constant risk of user error and is difficult to easily verify as being correct.

In a perfect world, the AdjustedExpirationDate would also reflect the effects of any terminal disclaimers that might have been filed--although this would be much more complicated to determine. It might be best to have another calculated field for "TDExpirationDate" that reflects this modified expiration date.

It would also be nice if the auto-change from "Issued" to "Expired" were to be based on the AdjustedExpirationDate instead of the ExpirationDate. That would be much more accurate and much less likely to lead a user to inadvertently miss a patent that was still active due to PTA. This should be the default behavior, or at least a setting that admins can select.

Can this be done?

AppColl allows admins to define custom fields (would be nice to have a few more of those!). Those fields are shown above the Notes field and below the Connections and Inventors field. Custom date fields are shown in a column to the right, and all other custom fields in a column to the left. There is the ability to re-order the fields within each column.

What would be really nice (and admittedly pretty challenging to pull off, I bet) is to give admins the ability to change where custom fields are located in the Matter details interface. For example, let's say that I create a "TD_Date" field that is intended to record the expiration date of a patent subject to terminal disclaimer--I'd probably want that info to be up near the "expiration date" field. Similarly, if I have a custom field of "ClientAdmin" to that is intended to record which client paralegal/secretary is assigned to a given matter, I'd probably want that to be just below "ClientContact" in the GUI.

It would be really neat if AppColl offered this flexibility.....

Cheers,
Christian

The PatentTermAdjustment field is (I think) only shown for applications that have the United States as Country. However, China is implementing a PTA-like system and PTA will thus be a datapoint that needs to be entered for Chinese patent applications.

It appears that other countries offer PTA as well, including, for example:

South Korea
Singapore
Nicaragua
Honduras
Guatemala
El Salvador
Dominican Republic
Costa Rica
Colombia
Chile

The PTA field should, I think, just be made available globally.

Cheers,
Christian

It would be nice if AppColl could provide a read-only field that was, in effect, a list of previous contacts that had a particular role with respect to a patent application, such as "Attorney" or "Paralegal." Sometimes, it becomes necessary to reassign matters to different individuals, e.g., due to someone leaving the firm or taking an extended leave (e.g., parental leave, sabbatical, etc.).

It would be nice to be able to filter matters based not just on who those matters presently list as attorney, paralegal, etc., but also who they previously listed in such roles. This could help with reversing those assignments at a later date if the previously assigned person returns to work at the firm.

For example, an "AttorneyHistory" field could store all attorneys that have been assigned to a matter, while ParalegalHistory could do the same for all paralegals that have been assigned to the matter. You could have ContributorHistory, PartnerHistory, and ClientContactHistory as well, but those likely aren't quite as immediately useful.

Otherwise, one has to either think ahead and export the previous assignments before updating them (so you can do a bulk reverse update if you want to restore the original assigned practitioner/paralegal) or parse through the Transaction History to identify all cases where the original assigned practitioner/paralegal was changed, and then craft a filter that identifies all of those matters by docket number (which could easily require multiple queries due to the filter string length limitations).

The new Earliest Benefit Date (EBD) for some matters is incorrect. This is currently a calculated field and is correct in many cases. However, we have discovered that it is not being properly determined for cases that claim only partial priority to a prior case lineage. For example, application A has an EBD that is 6+ years ago. Application B is a CIP of application A and was filed 4 years ago but inherits application A's 6+ year old EBD. The applicant then decides to file application C, which claims priority to application B but avoids claiming priority to application A. The EBD for application C should be the filing date of application B. But AppColl calculates the EBD for application C to be the same as application A. Application A is not listed as a Connection for application C.

This should be fixed. At a minimum, the field should be made user-editable so that users can fix it if necessary.

I'm not sure what the upper end is on filename length in AppColl, but it would solve a lot of headaches if it could be limited to something reasonable. When files from AppColl are downloaded, there are often files that can't be extracted because the resulting path length exceeds the file system limitations of Windows.

For example, I just had to deal with a ZIP file download from AppColl in which an email had a filename that was 216 characters long. When coupled with the root folder and email path, the entire path length was 260 characters in length--when I tried to unzip in a temp folder, that threw it over the limit. I could unzip it into root drive, but I'd still have to then go find any file with a filename longer than the difference between 260 characters and the folder I ultimately intend to copy it to and then rename those files to something below that limit. It makes it very time-consuming to deal with moving files into our local file system, e.g., with transfers of matters.

Or maybe provide a way of letting users specify a max filename length for ZIP file creation and then renaming the files in the ZIP file so as to not exceed that specified filename length. That would probably be the lowest-impact way of addressing this. The source files in AppColl would have filenames that remain unchanged in this approach.

Sometimes users pick query conditions that result in extraordinarily long execution times. For example, there are some fields that are apparently very computationally expensive to determine, and if you happen to include one in a report query/filter/column selection, it can result in AppColl spinning its wheels for ridiculous amounts of time (I just did this and it's been processing/sitting there for 10+ minutes with no end in sight). While this is happening, the user is effectively locked out of AppColl in that browser.

Would it be possible to add a control/button/something to the various report modules that lets the user cancel execution of a submitted query and have AppColl either clear the filters completely, revert to the previous query run, or revert to some default query that is not computationally intensive? Such a feature would be really great to have.

@support_appcoll Great, thank you for the quick action on this--can you provide further details on how it works? For example:

a) What triggers it? From testing, it seems that if I create a Client contact record with a "new" customer number (one that is not in the Admin eOffice Action settings list) or change an existing customer number for an existing Client contact record to a "new" customer number, AppColl generates an email that says "AppColl Warning - e-Office Not Enabled for USPTO Customer Number" in the subject line.
- Will it trigger if a client contact record lists a customer number that is in the admin customer number list but is then removed from that list? It doesn't seem like it does based on a test I just did--but that would be good to have as well.

b) How often is it sent out? Just once when the triggering Client contact record is saved? Or will the warning email continue to be sent out periodically, e.g., first of the month?

Thanks!
Christian

@SadiqA2304 100% agreed. It really should be a table view where a customer number can be added/removed without potentially modifying any other customer numbers already added. The table view could also list the client contact record(s) listing that customer number so that it's easier to understand what numbers are listed. The table view could be sortable by customer number / client.

We have 52 customer numbers for our account, so the current textbox control format really doesn't work well for interacting with/editing the list--we have to copy its contents into Word, edit it there, and then copy back the entire list into AppColl.

AppColl automatically determines the expiration dates for provisionals and US design apps, but not for any other types of application. PCTs are relatively straightforward--would be nice if AppColl could automatically determine them as well.

I'm envisioning a user/admin setting that has a drop-down menu that allows selection between: manual, 30 months, 31 months, 32 months, and 34 months. Manual would be the default and would make AppColl perform as it does now, i.e., no automated PCT expiration date determination.

The others would cause the expiration dates for PCTs without expiration dates to be determined based on the indicated month offset from their priority dates. Or maybe they don't touch existing PCT apps, but when a PCT app gets a priority date going forward (or has one that changes), the selected month offset is used to automatically determine the expiration date. If a user wants to back-fill expiration dates for existing PCTs, maybe they do that with a bulk update.

Cheers,
Christian

@gregg_appcoll I would suggest the following:

a) Account admin(s) (this should be the minimum!)
b) The partner(s) listed for matters that have the client with the customer number.
c) The paralegal(s) listed for matters that have the client with the customer number.

However, (b) and (c) would be contingent on how this is implemented. For example, the client contact record (with CN) would usually be created before any matters are created for that client, so there might not be any partners/paralegals for (b) and (c) when the CN comes into existence, and thus nobody to send to for (b) and (c).

But if the warning emails are sent out on initial contact creation/CN addition to a contact and then re-sent on a recurring periodic basis, e.g., once a month, then (b) and (c) would probably work.

It might also be good to have a way to enter a customer number into an AppColl contact record in a way that does not trigger the warning email. I haven't quite figured out the scenario where this would be needed*, but it seems potentially worth it to include as a feature. For example, if a customer number is preceded by an underscore, e.g., _12345, in the Contact record, assume that's definitely not a customer number that needs to potentially have the warning email sent out.

*Potential Scenarios
Client leaves firm and takes us off customer number; we could a) still leave the customer number in our eOffice Action settings to avoid triggering the warning email or b) delete the customer number from the eOffice Action settings and the client contact record. Option (a) might cause an issue if our continued listing of the customer number in the settings prevents another firm from being able to add the customer number without AppColl support involvement. Option (b) would mean we'd have to delete the customer number from our Contact record, but we might want to retain it.

@gregg_appcoll That would be a great start--please don't wait too long to add the ability to list specific recipients, however. It would also be useful to allow the admins to specify the subject line for such emails to increase the chances that it will be noticed/acted on.

Thanks!
Christian

@gregg_appcoll Understood about the privacy issues--if the addendum feature could be added, that would be great and honestly seems like it would address most of the issues.

Ideally it would be implemented in a way that allowed for admins to specify one or more individuals that should receive the email warning, and to specify when it was sent (it would be great it if it could be a) when a contact record with an unlisted customer number is saved and b) on a regular scheduled basis, e.g., on the 1st of each month).

Although, it seems like the automated approach could be implemented, but with a check to make it so that if there are two accounts listing the same customer number, then permission is sought from the first before authorizing the second. I mean, if I enter another customer's customer number into the settings page and save it, it's still there, right? You just don't enable it until permission is granted?