ClaimMaster provides you with a quick way to store, edit, and insert boilerplate paragraphs into your Word documents, as part of its patent drafting tools library. These paragraphs could be any canned and commonly-reused sections for Office Action responses (e.g., 102/103 case law), applications, etc. The boilerplate sections could have specific style/font settings and even include pictures. Once configured, the boilerplate paragraphs are easily accessible from the gallery section for the insertion in the document, as shown below. Note – this feature is only available for Office 2007 and later.
To configure and use boilerplate entries during patent application or Office Action response drafting, follow these steps:
- Open Boilerplate Preferences
From the ClaimMaster tab, click on the Boilerplate Tools menu, then Settings:
Alternatively, you can bring up Boilerplate Settings from the general Preferences in ClaimMaster:
- Edit Boilerplate Paragraphs Table
You can add new boilerplate entries directly to the Word document used by ClaimMaster to store all configured boilerplate paragraphs. To do so, open the Word boilerplate table from the location shown at the top of the Boilerplate Settings window:
Once the Word document opens, add or edit boilerplate paragraphs in the table.
To add an entry to the table, add a row to the table, then fill-in the “Main Category” and “Sub-Category” cells with a unique names (this will be the category/sub-category of the boilerplate item in the gallery; each name must be 32 characters or less due to Word’s limitations) and fill in the “Boilerplate Entry Text” item (this will be the actual boilerplate text). The cells in the “Boilerplate Entry Text” column can include text formatting and images.
- Advanced Boilerplate Configuration – Replacement Fields (Optional)
You can also include various replacement fields in the boilerplate text, such as [EXAMINERLASTNAME] or any other fields you have configured. These fields will be automatically updated when the boilerplate passage is inserted into the document. Notably, if you use ClaimMaster’s shell generation feature (Pro+/Lite+ version) to create Word shells, the generated documents will also store (in metadata) the utilized replacement fields/data. The stored replacement fields can be reused in boilerplate paragraphs at any time later when you are working with the ClaimMaster-generated shells.
- Advanced Boilerplate Configuration – Drop-down Entries (Optional)
You can also specify special drop-down boilerplate paragraphs that ClaimMaster will automatically convert to Word drop-down content controls. Such content controls allow users to select from a drop-down menu of available options when inserted into Word. To specify the drop-down boilerplate entry, use the following format:
The header row of the drop-down table should state DROPDOWNLIST:XXX, where XXX is the text the initial text that will be visible to the user when the control is inserted into the document
Each subsequent row in the drop-down table should have two columns: (1) first column is for the drop-down menu option and (2) second column for the value that will be inserted into the document when the user selects the drop-down option. These values can include replacement fields (they’ll be replaced upon insertion, if values for them are available, but they can’t be other drop-down replacement fields).
- Save the Boilerplate Entries Document
Once you are done editing the table, save and close the Word document containing boilerplate entries. Make sure to reload boilerplate entries into ClaimMaster after this by clicking on the Reload boilerplate table menu option.
- Insert Boilerplate Paragraphs
Once boilerplate settings are reloaded, you’ll be able to access all of your configured boilerplate entries from the Boilerplate Gallery, as shown below. Entries will be sorted by their categories and sub-categories.
To insert a boilerplate entry into your document, select the desired entry from the menu that shows on the right. This entry will be inserted at the location of the cursor in your open Word document. Any replacement fields in the boilerplate text, such as [EXAMINERLASTNAME], will be replaced with bibliographic data, if it’s available. In addition, any specifically configured drop-down entries will be automatically converted to Word’s drop-down controls.
For more information on this feature, check out the Online Manual.