Generating Flowchart Figures from Method Claims

To generate flowcharts, perform the following steps:

1. Launch the Figure-Generating Tool

   In ClaimMaster Ribbon, click on the Time-Saving Tools menu, then select Create Flowchart Figures from Method Claims:

   

2. Preview and edit flowchart boxes

   Once this option is selected, ClaimMaster will bring up a dialog displaying identified claims in the document. You can select one or multiple claims from which to generate flowcharts. Once you select claims, ClaimMaster will turn their limitations (except preambles) into separate boxes for the flowchart. You can review the sequence of flowcharts in the preview window below. Here you can specify the desired figure # and increments used for numbering sequential boxes (e.g., step of 5 will result in boxes labeled as 5, 10, 15 …). In addition, you can make text edits in the preview window – the edited text will be used to fill out the actual flow chart. Note that if you select multiple independent claims, ClaimMaster will create a separate flowchart for each independent claim group.

   

   Please follow these rules when making edits to the flowchart text in the preview window:
   • Make sure to place step #s into square brackets
   • Place [ignore] for steps you don’t want to include into the flowchart or just remove them from the text field. 
   • Changing claim #s, figure #s, or step increments above will reset the preview.
   • If you have more steps than can fit on one page (e.g., because you have many steps or because steps have a lot of text), ClaimMaster will automatically continue the steps on the next page of the flowchart. You can try to adjust box width/page width factor (item 8) to fit all boxes on one page.

3. Select Output Settings

   Once you are done editing the text of each flowchart section, you can configure the output settings at the bottom section of the dialog. Here you can specify whether to output the chart in Powerpoint or Visio format. In addition, you can specify whether to place step numbers inside or outside boxes, whether to include the “Start” bubble in the beginning of the flowchart, and also adjust the relative box width to page width ratio and set fonts for text contents of each box.

   

4. Generate Flowchart

   Finally, click on the Generate Flowchart(s) button to generate the flowchart in the desired format. It will look like this, for example: