Best posts made by RichardS3059

I would really like to be able to create an AIA/82A by itself, without the AIA/82B form. You list an "AIA/82 Transmittal For Power of Attorney ..." form in the list of PTO forms that can be created and filled in with data from a matter. The form created is both an AIA/82A and an AIA/82B. For my clients, I have them sign an 82B once, then create an 82A for each application, which is how the forms are designed to work. But now I have to edit the AIA/82 created by AppColl to delete the pages for the 82B every time I create an 82A.

While the Connections field lets me see the priority application(s) for the current application, including information on child applications would be really nice. Yes, I can go into Patent Center (for US applications) and use the Continuity tab to get that, but being able to click on a link to a child application in AppColl would be quite useful.

@joe-appcoll-com In my mind, this is by far the greatest weakness of AppColl. Doing it right is a huge undertaking, however.

@joe-appcoll-com Eventually, maybe. But I've not seen anything like a roadmap saying when. As a solo with clients who only work in a small number of countries, I can create my own rules fairly easily. But AppColl would have to spend a lot of resources to cover the world and all of the possible updates that have to be made from time to time. I managed a docketing group for a large firm for a while that used IP Manager (ugh), and the number of updates the vendor made--90% of which probably were of no interest to our clients--was huge.

@SadiqA2304 I'd rather not add yet another field. First Name and Nickname aren't the only fields that could use something like this. For example Filing Date and Official Filing Date. What I'd really prefer is some kind of syntax that allows generally indicating "use field X if it's not null, but use field Y if field X is null." Perhaps something like:

            {{Matter.ClientContact.Nickname},{Matter.ClientContact.FirstName}}

I'm not pushing that syntax. It was just the first thing that came to mind. Even more powerful would be a more generalized IF syntax.

What I end up doing now is filling in Nickname with the first name all the time, and just using Nickname all the time.

The feature of automatically generating a billing item when the Task Status value changes should be enhanced by making the triggering status value a drop-down using the configured completion states instead of having to type in a value.

As the number of tasks continues to grow, we need to be able to filter the list of task types in addition to just searching for the next task type that contains a word. While I would prefer filtering based on any of several task fields, even filtering the display to just task types that contain a filter word in the TaskType field would be a big help.

For example, all of my country-specific tasks have a task type that starts with the two-letter country code. Being able to filter the tasks list for, say, only tasktypes that start with CA would be a useful improvement.

Mind you, I would also love for you to add a CountryCode field to tasks (with the default being "All countries") and allow me to filter on that, too.

@MelissaT3398 Like other firms I've been at, my current firm includes the country code in the matter number. E.g., the AU designation in a Madrid case would be 1234.0002AU. So including an extra copy of the country code in the search results would be counterproductive for us, since it would take up more of the limited space.

@jonah-soundhound-com I agree, although what I'd really prefer is for the truncation to be eliminated.

@BerndN5890 You'd have to remember that the calculated date could be incorrect if a terminal disclaimer was in place. Or if PTE was granted under Hatch Waxman. And, of course, non-payment of maintenance fees. And that's just for US patents. For foreign patents, it's even more complicated.

From time to time, I need to send an informative email to a group or all of my active clients. I would really like to generate that email by selecting the relevant client contacts, then have AppColl generate the email, either as separate emails with them as To:, or as a group email, with each of them in the Bcc: line.

@GeorgeJ4336 My suggestion is that Matter.Examiner and other name fields should be treated similarly to a Contact so that the .First, .Middle, .Last, etc. subfields that we can specify for Contacts could be used for non-Contact name fields.

From time to time I need to edit a report to change something. Now, I have retype the report name and select the overwrite existing report just to save a change in a report. Can you provide a way simply to save changes in an existing report without going through the "save as" process?

@GeorgeJ4336 At first glance, the right answer would seem to be don't change commas to semicolons except when parsing email address fields. There's no reason to change commas to semicolons elsewhere. But your template would fail even if they only did that and you had a BillTo.EmailNoCC value of "jack@xxx.com, jill@xxx.com"; that would produce an invalid email address:

Nicole Sxxxx Xsssss(USA), Inc. <jack@xxx.com; jill@xxx.com>

Does anyone have any suggestions for the best way to docket international design registrations under the Hague convention? If you've already done that and would be willing to share what tasks you created, I would appreciate the help and not having to customize everything from scratch.

@SadiqA2304 Instead of a new field, I'd rather have AppColl allow formatting characteristics in non-date fields like it does with dates. Something like:

{Contact.USPTORegNum(#dd,ddd)}

That way I don't have to remember yet another field name.

@JessamyN2308 Here's a way I think might work. Create a user checkbox field named something like USNonpublicationRequest. Check the box in the US matter if true. When you create a non-US app where a non-pub request was filed, check that box i the foreign matter, too. Then create a "Request non-pub recission" task that is triggered by the filing date field in the non-US app gets any value while that checkbox is checked. Make sure that the task setup checks the "only create in any related US app" box. That should generate the task in the relevant US app.

Alternatively, you could skip the checkbox in the foreign app, and just auto-generate the task in the related US app any time you file a foreign app, but then you close the US task with not needed.

It's not ideal, but it might be better than nothing. To do more would require AppColl to implement a way for one task to cause the creation of a task in another matter, depending on a condition in the other matter.

@SadiqA2304 I'm used to programming, so the idea of adding syntax for more control of the templates feels better to me than adding fields that have logic embedded into them. I agree that putting the first name into the nickname field if no nickname exists isn't a great solution, but it does work until they provide something better. You only have to embed the nickname field into your template to get the desired result. It's a little extra setup work to remember to fill in the nickname field when it's not really a nickname, but that's a one-time effort when you create the contact.

I'll always prefer a programmatic way to accomplish the result over fields that have field-specific logic embedded into them, because they allow a more generalized result. For example, none of the several priority fields produces exactly how I often
want priority information specified. As it is, the list of fields doesn't remind me how each version is formatted, so I have to do tests to figure out which one has the closest to what I need, then manually edit the result of the template every time it's used.

If we had a generalized formatting syntax, we wouldn't have to wait for AppColl to create yet another special-purpose field, but would immediately have the ability to get what we want.

@KristaJ3145 Don't be too shy about changing standard tasks to fit your needs. I've done it a lot without any problems.

I can think of a few ways to do this.

1. Create a user field that indicates annuities are paid by the client as a Yes/No field, such as TaxPaidByClient. Then update the triggers for the annuity tasks to include a criterion that the TaxPaidByClient does not contain Yes. You could do it with the criteria that the field contains No, but then you'd have to set that user field in every matter where you pay the annuities. Which is best may depend on the ratio of client pays vs. attorney pays.

2. Add a tag to the Contact entry for the client that indicates Client pays annuities. Then add a trigger criterion that says the tag does not contain that indication to the trigger for generating the annuity task.

3. Put a keyword in any matter where the annuities are to be paid by the client. Then add a trigger criterion that that says the keyword field for the matter doesn't contain that keyword.

AppColl should support (and encourage) multifactor authentication. Preferably, you would allow the user to select multiple methods from a list of methods, such as email, SMS message, push notification, TOTP, and digital certificate. That way, if for some reason one method isn't working at login, an alternate method could be used.

@TPLA3794 I did create a few custom tasks. Because my practice is small (I'm semi-retired), I only created tasks that met my immediate needs rather than attempt to be fully general. But I'd be happy to share them with you, of course with the understanding that I take no responsibility for how you use them or for any errors that might be in them.

Drop me an email at richard@schafer-ip.com and I'll try to figure out a good way to share them.