How do I create templates for OA Responses, Word forms, and Reporting Letters?
Our OA Admin tool uses templates for two features:
- OA Response Shell Generation
- Word Forms
- 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 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 was filed on ."), and some placeholders must be the only text in the paragraph. The placeholders below may appear in all three template types except that the placeholder only works for Office Action response templates.
These placeholders may be mixed with other text:
- {{ADVISORY_ACTION_DATE}} (only set if it is more recent than the most recent office action)
- {{APPLICANT}}
- {{APP_DATE}} (for a national stage entry, this is the PCT filing date)
- {{APP_NO}}
- {{ART_UNIT}}
- {{CONF_NO}}
- {{CUSTOMER_NO}}
- {{DOCKET_NO}}
- {{EXAMINER}} (full name of the examiner)
- {{EXAMINER_LAST}} (last name of the examiner)
- {{FILING_OR_371C_DATE}} (same as shown in Patent Center)
- {{FIRST_INVENTOR}} (full name of the first inventor)
- {{INVENTOR_BLOCK_START}} and {{INVENTOR_BLOCK_END}} (this section will be repeated for each inventor; these placeholders can only appear once in each Word doc)
- {{INVENTOR}} (must appear between INVENTOR_BLOCK_START and INVENTOR_BLOCK_END)
- {{INVENTORS}} (names of all inventors)
- {{ISSUE_NO}} and {{ISSUE_DATE}}
- {{MAIL_STOP}} (we replace with one of Amendment, RCE, or AF)
- {{NMP_DATE}} (date of the most recent notice of missing parts)
- {{NOA_DATE}} (date of the most recent notice of allowance)
- {{NOA_DATE_3_MONTHS}} (response deadline that accounts for weekends and holidays)
- {{OA_DATE}}
- {{OA_DATE_1_MONTH}}, {{OA_DATE_2_MONTHS}}, ... {{OA_DATE_6_MONTHS}} (for OA response deadlines that account for weekends and holidays)
- {{OA_TYPE}} (we replace with one of non-final office action or final office action)
- {{PCT_APP_NO}} and {{PCT_APP_DATE}} (where the application claims priority to a PCT)
- {{PRACTITIONER_FIRST}}, {{PRACTITIONER_MIDDLE}}, {{PRACTITIONER_LAST}}, {{PRACTITIONER_FULL}}, {{PRACTITIONER_PHONE}}, and {{PRACTITIONER_REG_NO}}
- {{PUB_NO}} and {{PUB_DATE}}
- {{STATUTE}} (we replace with one of 1.111, 1.114, 1.116, or 1.312)
- {{TITLE}}
These placeholders must be the only text in the paragraph:
- {{CLAIMS}} (for inserting clean claims; only available for OA response templates)
- {{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!