Posts made by ChristianS9906

@joe-appcoll-com Hi Joe,

This is great--is there a help file/documentation on this feature? I'd like to approach a client about implementing it, but want to learn about it first.

Best,
Christian

The discussions feature that was recently added is great. As mentioned in a previous post, an ability to bulk delete discussions would be a great further enhancement. I understand that's being worked on, and we're looking forward to it.

A further enhancement that would be nice to have is the ability of individual users to edit/delete their own discussion entries (regardless of their permission level). This capability actually exists in the Task Discussion, but does not seem to exist in the Matter Discussion (I have not checked Contact Discussion to see what the deal is there). It would be nice if the Discussion feature was consistent in operation across all modules in AppColl (and, to be clear, in a way that allows any user to edit/delete their own posts!).

Cheers,
Christian

It would be helpful if AppColl could provide statistics on report usage, e.g., a way to see how many times a given report was run by users within a given timeframe (or several time frames, e.g., within last month, within last 3 months, within last 6 months, within last 12 months, lifetime).

Ideally, these statistics would reflect only incidents where reports were generated manually by a user (as opposed to auto-scheduled emailed reports). However, it might be nice to have both types of report usage tracked and available for review by users/admins.

This would allow admins/users to periodically review their reports and make more informed decisions as to whether to retire reports that are infrequently used. As the system currently stands, we're finding there are lots and lots of reports that have been generated over the years and we have little idea which actually get used on a regular basis. Having that info on hand would make it easier to figure out which ones spark joy and which can be tidied up.

@AnnM9156 That is correct--it is just a field that records data regarding the application. You can, however, customize triggering for tasks based on the value in that field. I took a look at our docket, and our 3-month non-final OA response deadline has two flavors--one that is called "Respond to Non-Final Office Action - 3-month deadline" and the other that is called "Respond to Non-Final Office Action - 3-month deadline (Track One)." The "track one" version triggers when a non-final OA is received in a case that has Track One status specified, and the non-track one version triggers when a non-final OA is received in a case that does not have Track One status specified. Our 4-month OA deadline triggers when either of the 3-month deadlines closes as "missed."

Minor UI suggestion....

In many interfaces in AppColl where you can review/edit the details of a particular records, e.g., Matter Details, Task Details, Task Type Definitions, Contact Details, etc., there are blue forward/back triangle buttons that bracket the record name at the top of the interface, just underneath the modules tab selector. These let you advance to the next record or previous record without having to navigate back to the list of records and select the next or previous record from the list.

These are nice buttons to have, but they are, unfortunately, dynamically positioned based on the length of the text in between them (which can be variable length, e.g., docket numbers, task type names, contact names, etc.). As a result, it is often the case that these buttons reposition themselves after every click, forcing the user to constantly have to reposition their mouse when clicking on them repeatedly.

It would be nice if they could be assigned a static position in the UI so that their location remains fixed.

@JasonP2345 I also agree, but with a caveat--once a task is closed out, then the owner should not change dynamically. Or there should be a way to choose whether or not the owner should be updated dynamically for closed-out tasks.

Closed-out tasks are historical records, indicating how a task was closed out, who was responsible for it when it was closed out, etc. Having that data change when a matter is reassigned to a new attorney or other contact could lead to misunderstandings as to who did what later.

Open tasks, however, are the responsibility of whoever they are assigned to, and it makes sense to update those to reflect whoever is assigned to a particular role for a matter when matter contacts are updated.

Otherwise, I agree that this would be a very useful feature. Right now, we have to manually bulk update all tasks to have new owners when we reassign matters. It is a drag.

Christian

@AnnM9156 You'd have to make special TaskTypes for that, e.g., "Respond to Non-Final Office Action (Track One)" that was a non-extendable deadline that triggers in place of the normal extendable one.

Or, and this is likely simpler, just have a "Track One Deadline" task that auto-dockets based on the triggering task respondby date and have it trigger whenever a Track One application dockets an initial Respond to Missing Parts/Restriction/Office Action deadline. That should about cover it. You'll have that on your docket to remind you that the normal response is subject to special timing considerations.

You can also include the Matter.FastTrack field included on docket reports; it will list if the matter is Track One.

@jonah-soundhound-com Yup, that would do the trick--strange that I didn't find that suggestion when I looked for custom tasks as a search topic. I upvoted it.

Currently, the syntax for fields in form letters is somewhat inconsistent--some of it is very straightforward, whereas other parts are not.

Taking ClientRef as an example, the basic syntax is: {Matter.ClientRef}. This is fine--very intuitive.

If you want to add characters before or after the field value that only show up when there is data for that field, however, you have to specify each such character using +XXX, where XXX is the 3-digit ASCII code. Thus, if you want a form letter to say "Client Ref.: <Field Value>" but to completely omit this text if there is no client ref, the field changes to:

{+067+108+105+101+110+116+032+082+101+102+046+058Matter.ClientRef}

A person editing this form letter later will have no idea what the text is that these numbers represent. It makes it very difficult to revise form letters that have enhanced form fields like this. It also makes such form fields insanely long in some cases--the appended or prepended text codes will be be 4X as long as the actual text that they represent.

However, if you want to specify alternate text to display in place of the field if the field is empty/null, then the syntax is quite straightforward:

{!No Client Ref Specified!Matter.ClientRef}

You just enclose the alternate text in exclamation marks and put it immediately after the opening curly bracket. A person reviewing the field immediately knows what it will say if there is no data in the field.

I would like to suggest that AppColl update the syntax for form letter fields to also allow for text that is to be prepended and/or appended to a field value to be presented as either the +XXX format, as normal text, or as a mixture of the two. This seems like it would be relatively easy to implement, as you could have a routine that inspects the prepend/append clauses for non-+XXX values and then does a substitution to turn any such values into +XXX format for processing by AppColl's current algorithm.

AppColl currently allows for a decent number of "custom fields" to be specified for Matters. It would be nice if AppColl also allowed users to specify some custom fields for tasks as well.

For example, users might want to have fields for:

Deadline for recommendation
Number of extensions available
Countries in which to validate in
Etc.

I think it could be a relatively small number of such fields--hard to imagine needing as many as for Matters.

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

@jonah-soundhound-com Would it work to just have a "matters" button in the Contact details interface that will list all matters where that contact is listed in any capacity? Or is there a reason to have different buttons for different roles that they can be in for each matter?

@jonah-soundhound-com I think Mike is mostly correct--for sorting, the previous sorts are retained, to the extent they can be, whenever a new sort is applied. If you replace "filter" in Mike's answer with "sort," it seems accurate.

However, there is no ability to group in AppColl that I am aware of (although maybe you can do this in advanced reports--I haven't played around with it enough to know).

Cheers,
Christian

When you generate an email template, the Send Email pop-up that allows you to choose which email template to create has two radio buttons for "Use local email client" and "Use AppColl." By default, "Use local email client" is selected. However, if the selected email template is greater than 2K in size, "Use AppColl" is selected by default.

It would be nice if the decision as to which option to select by default was sensitive to the browser being used. For example, Chrome and Edge both have low limits (I think in the 2K range) for mailto links, so if the user selects a template that will result in >2K message length, it makes sense in those browsers to flip the default selection for editor to "AppColl."

However, Firefox seems to allow for much longer mailto lengths, e.g., messages up to 24K characters in length. It would be nice if the threshold for switching to "use AppColl" was made different for Firefox than Chrome or Edge so that you don't need to switch back to "use local email client" each time you want to create an email using a greater-than-2K email template in Firefox.

Cheers,
Christian

@MikeO5888 Actually, there is a workaround....

The 2K limit is, it is true, a browser-inherent limit. But not all browsers are created equal....

Chrome and Edge, for example, seem to have limits of around 2K for MailTo link text.

However, Firefox seems to have a massive larger limit. For example, I have been able to successfully generate emails from AppColl in Outlook using Firefox that have nearly 24,000 characters (5+ pages of solid text in Word).

Keep in mind that if Firefox ever reduces that limit, there is nothing AppColl can do about it. At the same time, Chrome and Edge might raise it, allowing them to be used in a similar manner....

So if you're willing to use Firefox as your AppColl browser, you should be able to have much more flexibility in terms of the size of the email template for direct creation in your Outlook client.

Cheers,
Christian

@jonah-soundhound-com Yeah, I thought of that as well--but at some point, too much customizability becomes problematic for AppColl since it makes it difficult for them to write coherent instructions for users (if you have a screen shot showing where fields are but users may have completely different UI layouts, that may introduce headaches).

However, one way to maybe address that is to have a button/toggle in the UI that lets users instantly flip between a "default" AppColl UI layout (like it is now) and a customer-defined layout (in which admins could reposition any fields to suit the needs of their attorneys/admins). That way AppColl's help files are still applicable to the AppColl default, but users can also use custom layouts--with the understanding that AppColl help files are intended to be directed at the default layout....

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

@jonah-soundhound-com
37 CFR 1.78 requires that "[t]he reference also must identify the relationship of the applications, namely, whether the later-filed application is a continuation, divisional, or continuation-in-part of the prior-filed nonprovisional application, international application, or international design application." Not the same weight as 35 USC 120, of course, but still something I think should be complied with.

I suspect that you may be correct that it might not actually impact the priority claim's validity if one did not, but I would not want to test it--at the very least, there could be an argument that a patentee committed inequitable conduct by, for example, labeling a CIP priority claim as a normal "continuation" priority claim. This might cause an Examiner to mistakenly assume that the subject matter in the application is identical to that in the parent, and thus incorrectly apply the parent's priority date to all claim elements when some of those claim elements were not in the priority application and not entitled to that earlier date....

AppColl determines the priority claim type for each priority connection in an application based on what the application Type is of that application. For multi-tier priority claims, each priority claim type is determined based on what the application Type was that first made that priority claim.

This works well for many applications and is generally painless for users. However, it is completely unable to handle complex priority claims in which an application might simultaneously make two or more different types of priority claim to different parent applications. For example, mixed direct CIP and CON priority claims are simply not able to be recognized/specified in AppColl. If you call the application a continuation, then AppColl assumes both priority claims are continuation priority claims. If you call it a CIP, then AppColl assumes both priority claims are CIPs. In reality, it has one CON priority claim and one CIP priority claim.

This is potentially dangerous since AppColl populates the ADS based on what it thinks the priority claim is. If the user generates the ADS and then fails to modify it to correct the incorrect priority claims that AppColl provided, they will submit a priority claim that may be specified incorrectly, thereby jeopardizing it.

Users should have the ability to specify, for each priority claim, what the priority claim type is--it should not be tied to the Type of the application that is making the priority claim. The user-specified priority claim type is what should govern in ADS creation and in other parts of AppColl that show priority claim data.

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?

Hi Melissa,

Interesting question/suggestion--I doubt that the current framework can support this since the "Excel" export is just a CSV format. Maybe after we get "real" XLSX support. : )

I did find one way to do what you are asking, however. It is a little kludgy but seems to work.

a) Make a report with the Images column + other columns you want.
b) Export that report to PDF. It should show the images in table format.
c) Using Adobe Acrobat (other PDF software might work as well), convert the PDF report into an Excel spreadsheet.
d) Open the converted document in Excel. Select all cells in the table and un-merge them (on Home, Alignment ribbon tab). This is important; you won't be able to sort the table at all unless you do it. And if you copy/paste into Word, you'll never be able to find the merged cells in the Word table.
e) Select one of the images in your Excel table; then hit CTRL-A to select all of them.
f) Right-click one of the images you've selected and select "Size and Properties..."
g) In the sidebar that appears, expand "Properies" and select "Move and size with cells" or "Move but don't size with cells." You'll want to experiment to see which you prefer.
h) Select the entire range of data and then go to Home...Sort & Filter and select "Filter" to turn it into a sortable table.

Word is actually a better choice for this, I think, since a Word table will let you sort it but will also retain the row heights for the sorted rows, thereby preserving the appearance of each row in the sorted table.

Cheers,
Christian

The ability to make reports from the Transactions log is helpful. However, unlike nearly every other AppColl report, it does not allow for users to modify which columns are included in the report.

We would like to use a transaction report to alert clients to revisions made to fields that they do not want to have subjected to automatic Syncing. However, we want the report to only list the Matter and the Description fields, not the ID, Created, Who, or Why fields.

It would also be nice to be able to add other Matter fields, such as ClientRef to this report.

Can this be done?

Best,
Christian

Right now, if you Sync Connections from one account to the other, the existing Connections are overwritten in the recipient account. Clients are usually the ones requesting and receiving syncs from their OC; this causes issues since clients are usually also using Invention Manager, which creates IDF records that are then "connected" to the eventual application(s) that they spawn. OC, however, don't usually have Invention Manager and don't have records of their clients' IDFs. As a result, OC's connection data doesn't have the IDF linkages.

This presents a problem when OC syncs connection data to a client, as the current sync causes a wholesale replacement of the client's connection data (for all connections) to be overwritten with the OC connection data. Thus, connections that the client has between IDFs and applications will get overwritten and lost.

It would be a nice if AppColl could be set up so that users that receive syncs could specify what level of syncing should be performed on connections, e.g.:

• Sync priority connections (y/n)?
• Sync subject matter connections (y/n)?
• Sync IDF connections (y/n)?

AppColl would then only sync connections that match the connection types selected. For example, if an account owner specified "y" for priority connections only, then AppColl would, when syncing, only remove and replace connections that are "priority" connections. It would leave any "subject matter" or IDF connections alone.

Since we are not Invention Manager users, I don't know if IDFs have a separate connection type--if they are also "subject matter" connections, it might be nice to allow users to treat them differently from other non-IDF subject matter connections, so I broke them out as a separate category above.

Is this something that could be implemented?

Without it, it makes the Sync feature for connections data pretty much unusable.

Best,
Christian

This relates to some recent suggestions regarding an InventorEmails field (https://forum.appcoll.com/topic/134/new-field-request-inventoremails?_=1663947413348); it might be a more flexible way to get to the same result that could be extended to other fields.

Some contact fields for a matter are actually lists. These include the inventors, applicant(s), and licensee(s). In each case, the contact record(s) that are listed have their own fields. It is sometimes the case that users want to be able to make a list of the contact(s) for those fields, but break out the data for specific fields for each contact within the list. For example, we have a document that we provide to our foreign associates that lists, for each inventor:

<LAST NAME>, <First name> <Middle name>, Citizenship: <Citizenship>
<StreetAddress>,
<City>, <State> <ZIP>
<Country>
<ForeignNickname>

All of this info is provided (if available) for a given inventor before the next inventor is listed. Right now, our template for this is 7800 characters long since we have to essentially create 20 separate field blocks, one for each InventorX (where X is a number from 1 to 20). The format of these blocks is identical, except that "Matter.Inventor1" in every field within the first block gets changed to "Matter.Inventor2" in the second block, and so forth.

What would be great is if there were a Form letter/email syntax that would let a user define a block of text with fields and then bracket it within some sort of syntax block that causes AppColl to replicate the field data in that block that derives from an item in a list for each item in that list.

For example:

{Matter.Inventors.List({MATTER.INVENTORX.LAST}{+032MATTER.INVENTORX.SUFFIX}{+044+032Matter.InventorX.First}{+032Matter.InventorX.Middle}{+044+032+067+105+116+105+122+101+110+115+104+105+112+058+032Matter.InventorX.CitizenshipFull}{+013+010+067+104+105+110+101+115+101+032+067+104+097+114+097+099+116+101+114+032+078+097+109+101+058+032Matter.InventorX.ForeignNickname}{+013+010Matter.InventorX.Address})}

This would cause AppColl to, for each inventor listed for a matter, generate a text block per the above string.

This syntax could be really useful, I think. You could use it to insert emails for all inventors into an email, e.g.:

{Matter.Inventors.List({Matter.InventorX.EmailAddress}+059**)}**

There could even be a variant of this that adds an additional feature of making a punctuated list, e.g., with commas inserted between blocks (if more than two items in the list) and an " and " inserted before the last item (if more than one item in the list). The syntax for this could be like:

Dear {Matter.Inventors.PunctuatedList({Matter.InventorX.Prefix+032}{Matter.InventorX.Last})}

Which might generate a list like:

Dear Mr. Smith, Mrs. Doe, and Dr. Strange,

This would really enhance form letters/emails.

@MikeO5888 Awesome, so looking forward to it!

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 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 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?

@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

@jonah-soundhound-com You're correct--I'd forgotten that. Since we just have a generic annuity task instead of country-specific ones, we always docket off the annuity deadline provided by our foreign associates.

There's probably a way to do what you're after, but it would involve a recursive transient event that would retrigger itself in one year intervals from the filing date until just after it passes the issue date, at which point you'd have another task that would trigger off of the recursive one--that one would be your annuity task.

I don't know how to make the recursive transient task stop after it passes the issue date, however, so that's kind of a dealbreaker for now. If you explore this, make the test tasks be internal deadlines so they don't auto-complete and trigger into infinity.