We at TeamPatent are working on the ability to automatically import published patent grants/applications into our editor/validation system. Users could read patents with the text and figures side-by-side and identify likely errors. To illustrate its functionality, we manually imported two published patents:
A user’s patent application US20070022295 “System and method for providing secure message signature status and trust status indication” is imported as a demonstration document in all users’ dashboards as TP Sample Patent – Secure Message. TeamPatent automatically highlighted the following errors in red, allowing a user to quickly navigate to them and make changes.
- sender 30, mail sender 30, message sender 30, and LAN 30 (should be LAN 18?)
- mobile device 38, receiver 38
- component 42, digital signature 42, Cert 42, CRLs 42
- device 100, message text 100
- callout 62 (Retrieve sender’s public key) in Fig. 3 is unsupported
Photonics Magazine asked us to parse their user community’s seminal patent, US4704583, “Light amplifiers employing collisions to produce a population inversion”. It’s available as in your dashboard as TP Sample Patent – Optical Amplifier. TeamPatent automatically found the following errors:
- callout 45 (RF Power) in Fig. 3 is not supported in the specification
- elongated cavity 121 is not supported in the figures
- heating coil 126 is not supported in the figures
- electrode 127 is also, erroneously, called temperature regulator 127
- callout 138 in Fig. 4 is not supported in the specification
- callout 436 in Fig. 5 is not supported in the specification
We think TeamPatent will become part of the standard of care attorneys and agents will practice before filing patent applications. TeamPatent will obviate tedious hours currently spent manually checking references and avoid errors (such as the above) that make it through manual checks. We also think that an automatic import facility will make TeamPatent more approachable for professionals because what’s more compelling than seeing one of your own published patents run through the validation engine?
One of our users is a former patent examiner who’s pressed us to provide better tools for the PTO. Since applications are typically published before the first office action, the import functionality will allow examiners to automatically identify likely errors. This will provide the facility to both measure and improve the Patent Quality Index (PQI) metrics USPTO Director-Elect, David Kappos has proposed.
We welcome your comments on how good a fit TeamPatent will be in these applications.
