Creating new shells using a wizard [Lite+Shells and Pro+Shells versions] 

ClaimMaster lets you easily convert your existing Office Actions or other documents into shell templates that can be used with the shell generation tool.  


Getting Started


  • From the ClaimMaster Ribbon, click on the USPTO Office Actions, Shells, and Forms menu, then select Analyze Office Actions and Generate Shell Documents, then Convert Existing Document into Shell Template:



Feature Options

You will be presented with the following window, which will allow you to convert the existing document, such as an Office Action reply, to a new shell, such as shown here and here:



Step 1:  Convert an existing document to a new shell


    1. Click this button to convert the existing Word document to a new shell. 
    2. Alternatively, you can click this button to load another document to be converted to a Word shell.  

As part of this process, you will need to select a new shell name and specify the location of the original document, as shown below, then click "Save".


    1. Click this button to show all configured shell templates within ClaimMaster.
    2. Once the conversion process complete, ClaimMaster will create a new template with the shell name you specified at the %APPDATA%\ClaimMaster\Shells\ directory, specified at this location.  In addition, the new shell will now appear in shell listings in the Shell Generation tool.


Step 2: Insert desired replacement fields into the new shell


    1. The new template will be opened for editing at this point.  When you click the "Detect replacement fields ..." button, ClaimMaster will attempt to automatically detect replacement fields locations in your document based on the bibliographic data for the application # used in your application.  Here you can also specify the source for the biblio data, such as Patent Center (published) or Patent Center (manual import for unpublished)
    2. You have a list of all of the available replacement fields with explanations provided in window below (item 8).  Simply select any one of the fields and then click "Insert ..." button below to insert the field in the open shell document at the current cursors location.
    3. If this checkbox is enabled, then boilerplate gallery fields (e.g., dropdowns) inserted into the document will be converted to plain text after their first use. 
    4. Use the filter drop-down to filter the list of available fields by type:

    1. Shows a list of available replacement fields that can be inserted into the shell.


Step 3: Save your new shell

When you are done making edits to the shell document, simply save and close it.  It is now available in the list of configured shells in the Shell Generation tool.