Using Office Action Response Assistant

To use the OA Response Assistant, please follow these stesp:

1. Launch the OA Response Assistant Tool

   From the ClaimMaster tab, click on the USPTO Office Actions, Shells, and Forms menu, then select Office Action Response Assistant:

   

2. OA Response Assistant Tabs

   The OA Response Assistant window helps you quickly prepare an Office Action response and has several sections, each under a separate tab. Switch between tabs to access different features of the OA Response Assistant.

   

3. Reviewing OA Summary

   The OA Summary tab of the OA Response Assistant lets you review the summary of the Office Action that you are responding to (if the response shell was generated by ClaimMaster).   OA Response Assistant obtains the summary information from the metadata stored within the response shell.

   

   In particular, the main window in this tab shows allowances/objections/rejections identified in the OA from which the shell was generated.  If you click on the individual items in the tree, you’ll be able to review summaries of selected allowance/objection/rejection in the preview window.

   For quicker Office Action response drafting, you can select any one of the OA Summary items and click on the purple Insert Selected Item button to insert that selection into the open Word document at the current cursor location.

4. Quick Access to Pre-Defined Boilerplate Entries

   The Boilerplate Entries tab of the OA Response Assistant lets you select from the various configured boilerplate entries to insert into the document. Boilerplate entries (e.g., canned 101 or 102/103 response paragraphs) can contain additional replacement fields that will be populated with data (if available) upon their insertion into the document. You can also filter boilerplate entries by their names/types or text to make it easier to find the relevant entries.

   

   When you select a particular boilerplate in the table, the preview window will show the text of the boilerplate, including any replacement data applied from the OA or bibliographic data.

   For quicker Office Action response drafting, you can select any one of the available boilerplate entries and click on the purple Insert Selected Item button to insert that boilerplate entry into the open document at the current cursor location.

5. Quick Access to Biblio Data from the Replacement Data Tab

   The Biblio Data tab of the OA Response Assistant lets you insert individual replacement fields populated with bibliographic data into the open OA shell document. This may be helpful you if you need to quickly add a piece of bibliographic or OA information to the OA response. To get the bibliographic information, ClaimMaster will access either USPTO’s Patent Examiner Data System (“PEDS”) or Public/Private Patent Application Information Retrieval (PAIR).

   

   During OA Response drafting, you can select any one of the available replacement fields in the table and click on the purple Insert Selected Item button to insert the selected replacement field/data into the open Word document at the current cursor location.

6. Quick Access to Claim Limitations from the Claims Tab

   When drafting an Office Action response, you may often need to quote a particular claim limitation. The Claims tab of the OA Response Assistant lets you easily load and insert claim limitations into the open OA response document in quoted notation.

   

   The OA Response Assistant tool breaks up claims limitation-by-limitation. Simply click any one of the available limitations in the table and click on the purple Insert Selected Item button to insert the selected claim limitations (either in quotes or without) into the open Word document at the current cursor location.