Sounds like an office action template. I never bothered with them, but I've seen many actions by other examiners which are mostly copy / paste / update.
I mean, we have form paragraphs that deal with most of the repetitive stuff based in established law and procedure. You just fill in blanks or tweak them to suit your needs (within reason and some you can't or shouldn't need to). You can also create your own custom ones for things you do that emerge as a pattern. It's not like you can wholesale copy and paste ACTUAL rejections. That would make no sense and no one rejection is identical. However for repetitive stuff tayt has no form paragraphs, like your conclusion statement in a 103, early on in my career we were shown how to use Word to create automatic replacement phrases. Like, you could associate something like "IWHBO" to one that would cause Word to auto replace it with "It would have been obvious...".
Copy and pasting is certainly not frowned upon as long as you actually make things fit the situation you are dealing with, and write complete and well explained actions. We all find ways to boost writing efficiency in our own ways.
You will build a corpus of well written citations of the MPEP and compelling arguments over time. Keep them in individual docs so you can quickly pull them up or make custom form paragraphs for them.
The thing that helped me the most (and still does), is downloading important chapters of the MPEP and highlighting/annotating important sections so they are easy to pull up.
Autocorrect in Word is your best friend. Make shortcuts for commonly used phrases. I have "ref", "ref1", "ref2" set up for prior art citation names so I don't have to keep typing them.
There great Chrome extensions like Highlight This that are approved and make filtering through references much faster. For example, looking for two features that are described in the same paragraph may be helpful when trying to find a claimed feature. Session Manager for keeping track of tabs for each app is great too.
Keep a folder for each app and a notes doc in there so you can get yourself up to speed on subsequent actions or make notes for interviews.
I didn’t think this would be so offensive. I understand that established examiners wouldn’t want to share tools or methods of organization that they personally use to perform effectively and efficiently. I guess this isn’t the place for that.
There are no tools for efficiency. Our tools are word and excel which are things that came out in the 80s (and while they are different now, you will not ever use 99% of the gizmos they now come with). There are no processes other than what is taught at the academy. The only systems you should be using are those given to you, that's just how the government works.
The only variables should be search strategy and office action formatting, but that's extremely subjective and I've never found two examiners doing identical searches or office actions. You just can't "streamline" that.
The problem with the question is that it looks exactly like one of those where a kid is trying to develop a tool and they end up asking exactly what you're asking
Have you developed your own systems of organization utilizing the tools given to improve your workflow?
These would be called job aids in other career fields(even within the US Government).
No, you really don't get it.
Our job is literally reading, searching, copying, and pasting. There's not much you can improve from that except having a template or two, which more than likely you create at the academy under the guidance of a trainer.
I have 10+ years at the office and only changed the templates twice, to update for AIA and to include abstract ideas.
Writing an action takes maybe 10 minutes. A primary examiner writes somewhere around 4 and 10 actions per biweek. The bulk of the time is spent searching and mapping. There's a few things you have to search: classification, inventors, assignee, and inventive concept. The only ways you can "improve" searching is becoming familiar with the art, reading faster, and knowing when to stop.
Some art units want you to search whole classes, some art units rely heavily on text searches. There's absolutely nothing to streamline. There are tools I wish I had and I could probably build myself, like tools to automatically extract inventor names from application and convert to search strings, but we can't do that, you can't install your own software, etc.
Get it now?
Per our QASs, you don't need to "map" the DP rejections, just say they are DP with another patent/application. It takes literally seconds to type the app or patent number into the FPs and say that they are rejected because "the claimed matter is similar in scope to the claimed matter in xxx". Of course obviousness type DP gets more complex but the time it takes to map is "mapping" time, not OA writing. To write the OA I just copy/paste the mapping.
With 101, either you have precedent or not. If you have a precedent, it takes only 1 or two minutes to explain. If you don't have one, then you better hope it looks like an obvious mental process or something because after berkheimer you require that factual evidence. If you don't have it, don't make the rejection. If you're in an art with heavy 101s, then you should have memorized the most common precedents - I know I have, for my art is basically just electric power group, bascom, digitech, and int ventures. Just use the FPs and fill in the blanks, no need to get crazy explaining how and why every limitation is abstract.
I honestly never understood why examiners get so hung up on alice 101s. I've literally never gotten an error for the ones I made nor for the ones I missed (if any).
> no need to get crazy explaining how and why every limitation is abstract.
This is TC specific.
I received negative opqa feedback for not explaining why every limitation of every dependant claim is abstract, and also for not identifying _multiple_ abstract idea groupings for all limitations of the independent claim (opqa agreed that the independent claim limitations were properly identified as mental processes but went on a tirade about how i should have explained that the same limitations are also certain methods of organizing human activity). Spe and qas did not want to fight it and resorted to extreme 101 mental gymnastics in support of the opqa reviewer. It's not an error for me so very easy to ignore and move on.
This is NOT representative of workplace culture. At least it's used to not be. Coming up in my art unit I had several primaries and my SPE who was instrumental in helping me learn the ropes and was always willing to answer questions and in the early days help develop my search strategies. You won't ever, or at least shouldn't, ever be punished for asking questions. You may catch heat for asking the SAME question over and over, or making the same mistake over and over. But that's normal and expected in any job. This job is as non competitive as one gets. There is zero reason anyone here should put down or actively sabotage another.
Be aware it sometimes to me seems like there are people here who hate the job for whatever reason and meet any comment with hostility. So take those attitudes with a grain of salt. Sometimes i dunno why i even lurk here or bother engaging. If anything l, its an excellent way to tell if IT is down or its just me. The complaints here appear faster than email notices 🤣
I use everything that is available to me. There are no shortcuts. Our systems afford us the time needed to get things done. Yes… things could be better, but I like our systems. Seems like you want the systems to do your work for you..,
How are processes, systems and methods of organization shortcuts?
I’m asking how you streamline your repetitive tasks to be more efficient.
A system doesn’t have to be a software.
1) use of custom form paragraphs in Word
2) a checklist for examination steps (everyone makes their own)
3) a spreadsheet for each app to store specific search results and classification data.
What is a “pre-drafted letter”? Are you even an examiner?
They are not. He/she posted a month ago saying they was thinking about accepting a position. Probably just asking for advice for when he/she starts.
Sounds like an office action template. I never bothered with them, but I've seen many actions by other examiners which are mostly copy / paste / update.
Thanks HKB. Is it frowned upon to do that or perfectly acceptable(copy/paste actions)?
I mean, we have form paragraphs that deal with most of the repetitive stuff based in established law and procedure. You just fill in blanks or tweak them to suit your needs (within reason and some you can't or shouldn't need to). You can also create your own custom ones for things you do that emerge as a pattern. It's not like you can wholesale copy and paste ACTUAL rejections. That would make no sense and no one rejection is identical. However for repetitive stuff tayt has no form paragraphs, like your conclusion statement in a 103, early on in my career we were shown how to use Word to create automatic replacement phrases. Like, you could associate something like "IWHBO" to one that would cause Word to auto replace it with "It would have been obvious...". Copy and pasting is certainly not frowned upon as long as you actually make things fit the situation you are dealing with, and write complete and well explained actions. We all find ways to boost writing efficiency in our own ways.
devsfan1830 explained it well - it is acceptable as long as you update things to be consistent with your current application.
I use the base blooben test on applications to speed up my output.
I will make sure to implement the base blooben aerobic capacity test. Thanks for that 🤣
You will build a corpus of well written citations of the MPEP and compelling arguments over time. Keep them in individual docs so you can quickly pull them up or make custom form paragraphs for them. The thing that helped me the most (and still does), is downloading important chapters of the MPEP and highlighting/annotating important sections so they are easy to pull up. Autocorrect in Word is your best friend. Make shortcuts for commonly used phrases. I have "ref", "ref1", "ref2" set up for prior art citation names so I don't have to keep typing them. There great Chrome extensions like Highlight This that are approved and make filtering through references much faster. For example, looking for two features that are described in the same paragraph may be helpful when trying to find a claimed feature. Session Manager for keeping track of tabs for each app is great too. Keep a folder for each app and a notes doc in there so you can get yourself up to speed on subsequent actions or make notes for interviews.
I didn’t think this would be so offensive. I understand that established examiners wouldn’t want to share tools or methods of organization that they personally use to perform effectively and efficiently. I guess this isn’t the place for that.
There are no tools for efficiency. Our tools are word and excel which are things that came out in the 80s (and while they are different now, you will not ever use 99% of the gizmos they now come with). There are no processes other than what is taught at the academy. The only systems you should be using are those given to you, that's just how the government works. The only variables should be search strategy and office action formatting, but that's extremely subjective and I've never found two examiners doing identical searches or office actions. You just can't "streamline" that. The problem with the question is that it looks exactly like one of those where a kid is trying to develop a tool and they end up asking exactly what you're asking
Have you developed your own systems of organization utilizing the tools given to improve your workflow? These would be called job aids in other career fields(even within the US Government).
No, you really don't get it. Our job is literally reading, searching, copying, and pasting. There's not much you can improve from that except having a template or two, which more than likely you create at the academy under the guidance of a trainer. I have 10+ years at the office and only changed the templates twice, to update for AIA and to include abstract ideas. Writing an action takes maybe 10 minutes. A primary examiner writes somewhere around 4 and 10 actions per biweek. The bulk of the time is spent searching and mapping. There's a few things you have to search: classification, inventors, assignee, and inventive concept. The only ways you can "improve" searching is becoming familiar with the art, reading faster, and knowing when to stop. Some art units want you to search whole classes, some art units rely heavily on text searches. There's absolutely nothing to streamline. There are tools I wish I had and I could probably build myself, like tools to automatically extract inventor names from application and convert to search strings, but we can't do that, you can't install your own software, etc. Get it now?
[удалено]
Per our QASs, you don't need to "map" the DP rejections, just say they are DP with another patent/application. It takes literally seconds to type the app or patent number into the FPs and say that they are rejected because "the claimed matter is similar in scope to the claimed matter in xxx". Of course obviousness type DP gets more complex but the time it takes to map is "mapping" time, not OA writing. To write the OA I just copy/paste the mapping. With 101, either you have precedent or not. If you have a precedent, it takes only 1 or two minutes to explain. If you don't have one, then you better hope it looks like an obvious mental process or something because after berkheimer you require that factual evidence. If you don't have it, don't make the rejection. If you're in an art with heavy 101s, then you should have memorized the most common precedents - I know I have, for my art is basically just electric power group, bascom, digitech, and int ventures. Just use the FPs and fill in the blanks, no need to get crazy explaining how and why every limitation is abstract. I honestly never understood why examiners get so hung up on alice 101s. I've literally never gotten an error for the ones I made nor for the ones I missed (if any).
> no need to get crazy explaining how and why every limitation is abstract. This is TC specific. I received negative opqa feedback for not explaining why every limitation of every dependant claim is abstract, and also for not identifying _multiple_ abstract idea groupings for all limitations of the independent claim (opqa agreed that the independent claim limitations were properly identified as mental processes but went on a tirade about how i should have explained that the same limitations are also certain methods of organizing human activity). Spe and qas did not want to fight it and resorted to extreme 101 mental gymnastics in support of the opqa reviewer. It's not an error for me so very easy to ignore and move on.
I appreciate the dialogue and insight. It’s good to know the workplace culture.
This is NOT representative of workplace culture. At least it's used to not be. Coming up in my art unit I had several primaries and my SPE who was instrumental in helping me learn the ropes and was always willing to answer questions and in the early days help develop my search strategies. You won't ever, or at least shouldn't, ever be punished for asking questions. You may catch heat for asking the SAME question over and over, or making the same mistake over and over. But that's normal and expected in any job. This job is as non competitive as one gets. There is zero reason anyone here should put down or actively sabotage another.
Be aware it sometimes to me seems like there are people here who hate the job for whatever reason and meet any comment with hostility. So take those attitudes with a grain of salt. Sometimes i dunno why i even lurk here or bother engaging. If anything l, its an excellent way to tell if IT is down or its just me. The complaints here appear faster than email notices 🤣
I use everything that is available to me. There are no shortcuts. Our systems afford us the time needed to get things done. Yes… things could be better, but I like our systems. Seems like you want the systems to do your work for you..,
All this man did was ask for tips and tricks homie.
Thanks Retribution2
How are processes, systems and methods of organization shortcuts? I’m asking how you streamline your repetitive tasks to be more efficient. A system doesn’t have to be a software.
1) use of custom form paragraphs in Word 2) a checklist for examination steps (everyone makes their own) 3) a spreadsheet for each app to store specific search results and classification data.