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How do I create templates for OA Responses and Reporting Letters?

  • Updated

Our OA Admin tool uses templates for two features:

  • OA Response Shell Generation
  • Reporting Letter Generation.

Your subscription admins can upload templates on our Subscription Admin page.

We automatically insert information relating to your application and your latest OA response.  To do this, you need to put placeholders surrounded by double curly brackets (without any spaces).  For example, we can replace the placeholder {{TITLE}} with the title of your patent application.  Our default template can be downloaded here for reference in creating your own template.

Below are the placeholders you can use in your own templates.  Some placeholders can be used in combination with other text in a paragraph (e.g., "Application {{APP_NO}} was filed on {{APP_DATE}}."), and some placeholders must be the only text in the paragraph.

These placeholders may be mixed with other text:

  • {{APP_NO}}
  • {{APP_DATE}} (for a national stage entry, this is the PCT filing date)
  • {{FILING_OR_371C_DATE}} (same as shown in Patent Center)
  • {{TITLE}}
  • {{DOCKET_NO}}
  • {{APPLICANT}}
  • {{FIRST_INVENTOR}} (full name of the first inventor)
  • {{EXAMINER}} (full name of the examiner)
  • {{EXAMINER_LAST}} (last name of the examiner)
  • {{ART_UNIT}}
  • {{CONF_NO}}
  • {{CUSTOMER_NO}}
  • {{OA_TYPE}} (we replace with one of non-final office action or final office action)
  • {{OA_DATE}}
  • {{ADVISORY_ACTION_DATE}} (only set if it is more recent than the most recent office action)
  • {{STATUTE}} (we replace with one of 1.111, 1.114, 1.116, or 1.312)
  • {{MAIL_STOP}} (we replace with one of Amendment, RCE, or AF)

These placeholders must be the only text in the paragraph:

  • {{CLAIMS}} (for inserting clean claims in your OA response template)
  • {{ALLOWABLE}} (the examiner's indication that claims are allowable)
  • {{OBJECTIONS}} (all office action objections)
  • {{REJECTIONS_101}}
  • {{REJECTIONS_112}}
  • {{REJECTIONS_102}}
  • {{REJECTIONS_103}}
  • {{REJECTIONS_OTHER}} (double patenting and other less common ones)
  • {{OA_SUMMARY}} (a GPT-generated one paragraph summary of the office action for reporting letters)

For the office action objections and rejections, we follow the USPTO form paragraphs that examiners are required to use.  If your examiner does not use the form paragraphs, then we may not be able to extract objections or rejections.

Please let us know if you would like us to add any other placeholders.

A note on Word formatting when we copy claims from your "claims.docx" to your "template.docx":

  • If your claims.docx has a named paragraph style and the template.docx does not have this style, then we also copy this style to your template.docx.
  • If your claims.docx has a named paragraph style and the template.docx has a style with the same name, then we use the style present in template.docx.
  • If claims.docx and template.docx have different default styles, then you may see unexpected formatting, such as a different font.  You can change the default style in template.docx to prevent this from happening.
  • Please consult your local Word expert for assistance!