ClaimMaster’s form/shell generation and downloading tools now seamlessly integrate with the USPTO’s Open Data Portal (“ODP”). The ODP is a recently launched data platform that allows programmatic access to bibliographic data and file wrapper documents for the published U.S. applications and patents. It includes data and functionality previously found on PEDS and BDSS, which will soon be retired by the USPTO. Unlike the older services, we’ve noticed that the ODP has a very fast response time. Below is a list of numerous ClaimMaster features in version 2025.3 that now integrate with the Open Data Portal, enabling instantaneous access USPTO data in a variety of helpful ways. We will also continue to enhance ClaimMaster with additional features powered by ODP data.
Downloading of bibliographic data from Open Data Portal to fill out USPTO forms
With the ODP set as the default source for pulling bibliographic data of published U.S. patent applications, you now have very fast access to the bibliographic data for filling out and verifying headers of various USPTO forms (including IDS SB08a), Office Action shells, and other documents. You can also supplement patent family trees with bibliographic data pulled from the ODP. For unpublished applications, you can manually import bibliographic data from the Patent Center’s Private view.
Batch downloading of IFW documents in PDF, DOCX, and XML formats
ClaimMaster’s direct connection to the Open Data Portal also lets you very quickly download various file wrapper documents in PDF, DOCX, and XML formats. For example, ClaimMaster will download full file histories in PDF format, Office Actions in DOCX format, or claim amendments in XML and DOCX formats. You can also batch download documents for multiple applications and ClaimMaster lets you set up custom filters for downloading specific types of documents at once (e.g., all Office Actions and applicant responses).
Downloading of the last Office Action and claims for analysis and shell generation
You can simply specify the published application’s serial number and ClaimMaster will first automatically download the latest Office Action from the Open Data Portal in DOCX format, then analyze its contents for you. Therefore, for published applications, there is no longer a need to manually download new Office Actions from the Patent Center.
Moreover, when generating shell OA responses, you can tell ClaimMaster to pull the latest iteration of claims from the file wrapper, so that they will be inserted into the shell with correctly adjusted status identifiers and accepted amendments.
Analysis of amendment history in patent file wrappers
We’ve also made it very easy to evaluate the history of amendments in a particular application’s or patent’s file history. Simply specify the published application # and ClaimMaster will download all amended claims for that application from the Open Data Portal, providing you with a visual amendment-by-amendment analysis of how the claims have been changed during prosecution.
Analysis of IDS submissions in file wrappers
We’ve also improved our Prior Art Citation explorer to pull all IDS forms for a given application number. Now you can just specify the application # and ClaimMaster will download all IDS forms from the Open Data Portal, analyze them, and extract all IDS citations made by the applicant (both publications and NPLs). You can use this tool to quickly get a list of all applicant-submitted prior art in a published patent application . The same capability is also available when creating IDS citation groups, which can also be populated from IFW documents.
Use your own API key for accessing Open Data Portal
Finally, we let you customize access to the Open Data Portal to improve your downloading performance. As the ODP enforces API rate limits, it will throttle API downloads after specific download quotas are reached, so if you plan to batch download a large number of IFW documents, we recommend that you register with the ODP and obtain your free API key that can be reused within ClaimMaster (under Preferences->Biblio Data Settings).
Utilizing your personal API key will help you avoid delays during extensive downloads and ensure that your downloading tasks do not impact other ClaimMaster users.
Here’s more information on the specific features enhanced with the Open Data Portal data:
We’ve also added deeper AI patent analysis tools and templates in this release. To learn more, click here.