Track every patent, from disclosure to renewal
A file in PatentFlow holds the whole patent family - the firm's own filings and the foreign ones, with register data, documents, deadlines and correspondence. The deadlines are computed from the filings, entered in the docket and checked by a second person, and every change stays in the history.
One file per patent family
Every filing - DPMA, EPO, USPTO, PCT or any national office - keeps application, publication and grant number and date, the claimed priorities, IPC classes and the draft it is based on. A filing the firm does not handle, such as the foreign origin of a follow-up filing, sits in the same file with its data.
Per office, a checklist shows which documents are missing: request form, description, claims, abstract, drawings, inventor designation, power of attorney, priority document. Items are ticked off or uploaded, and the drafts from the editor count automatically.
Deadlines computed, docketed, checked
From the filing and priority dates PatentFlow computes the priority year, the PCT national and regional phases, EP validation and unitary effect, the DPMA inventor designation, office action responses, renewals and the end of the opposition period.
Computed deadlines are proposals. Someone enters them in the docket, where each one gets a pre-deadline, a responsible person and the four-eyes check: whoever entered a date may not check it, and a date changed later needs a new check. A deadline is completed with proof - a note or the filing receipt - and never simply deleted.
The responsible person gets reminder mails at the pre-deadline and before the deadline; overdue ones also reach the owner of the file. Every user can subscribe to the docket in Outlook, Google or Apple Calendar.
Office mail read and assigned
Office letters are uploaded as PDF and read on your server, with OCR for scans. PatentFlow recognises the office, the application number, the date, the kind - for example a communication under Art. 94(3) EPC or a DPMA examination report - and the stated time limit, and finds the filing.
After a check, one click turns the letter into an office action of the filing, with the PDF attached and the response deadline in the docket.
Official fees from the offices' own figures
Every renewal deadline shows the official fee and the late surcharge, and each file lists the renewal fees of the coming years. A calculator gives the fees of a new filing for DPMA, EPO and USPTO.
Once a week the tables are compared with the EPO schedule of fees, the DPMA cost sheet and the USPTO fee schedule. Differences are shown item by item and taken over with one click - never silently.
Letters to the client
Deadline notices, forwarded office actions, status reports and renewal instructions are written from templates in German, English or French. Client, filing, deadline and fees are filled in from the file; the text can be edited before the Word letter with your letterhead is created and kept in the file.
Follow-up filings and proceedings
A foreign right is imported from its PDF or from the EPO database; the deadlines for the follow-up filing are computed from its dates, and the translation is prepared with a terminology list you check first. Oppositions, nullity and infringement proceedings, appeals and employee-invention matters (ArbnErfG) have their own deadlines, which appear in the same docket.