The overview page includes the following summaries:
Event History
The number underneath Event History shows how many events up to this day, including Prosecution and Post-Grant Proceedings.
The following illustrates the patent US9606907B2 thus far has undergone four IPR cases in addition to prosecution and one ITC. It explains the number of events in history is six (6).
The timeline suggests the application date is August 20, 2013, and the patent was issued on March 28, 2017 with an estimated expiration date of July 05, 2030.
Each event may come with labels that highlighted key stages during the events. In the example of the 690 US patent, “RCE” (Request for Continued Examination) and “TD” (Terminal Disclaimer) were filed during prosecution. Furthermore, Cases IPR2018-00362 and IPR2018-00363 are in the “Final” stage.
The line of Prosecution History, similar to the Post-grant Proceeding cases, is dotted with office actions (OAs) the date of which can be revealed when the cursor is hovered over each event. Dark dots are referred to as “Rejection Documents” in Prosecution History. In the Post Grant cases, Dark dots represent “Petition” and “Decision”.
Should the dots are in a cluster, you can zoom in on the clustered area by moving the cursor over.
When you want to zoom out, simply click on “Reset Zoom”.
In Prosecution History, corresponding file wrappers to the OAs can also be found in History Summary, where prior art references cited by examiners or petitioners on the legal basis of double patenting, § 102, § 103 main (1st) and pertinent patents are highlighted.
To find out more about Non-Final Rejections (CTNF) and Final Rejections (CTFR), click on Grounds that comes with a number, which suggests how many grounds on a legal basis that qualify rejections by examiners or petitioners against which claims.
You can click on prior art patent numbers to study the patent information such as Current Assignee, Legal Status among others. (Please refer to Patent Page in Tips.)
Each OA is clickable to its corresponding file wrapper, whether it is CTNF or REM or NOA, Quality Insights offers not only the .pdf file, but also text-searchable format. Both files are aligned side by side for ease of use. Similarly, docket entries of Post Grant Proceedings can do the same in terms of having the .pdf and text formats aligned side by side.
Using the Highlighter function, you can search keywords, terms or phrases to timely locate the paragraph(s) you look for.
If you prefer to view the original version, you can Hide the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) version and further zoom in and out or even turn the .pdf version around.
When a Download or Printout is needed, you can do so by clicking on the designated buttons on the right top corner. You can even Bookmark this file for later.
Family Status
The Family Status map gives a summary of all the family members by legal status, including “Abandoned Appl”, “Active”, “Pending”, and “PGPub”.
The following chart illustrates that WO2007/121243A9, the family counterpart of US7710978B2, was abandoned during application. Click on the patent to learn about its abandonment date and reason.
For retrieval of family members in one or more certain legal statuses, check the Family Status box(es) .
Similarly, you can go on to Family Prior Art for the overall family members in List View, Summary View or Gallery View.
Prior Art
A summary of prior art is provided in a bar chart. Each bar represents the number of an art source identified by Quality Insights in relation to the patent at issue, including CTNF and CTFR in Event History and Prior Art Finder, European rejection prior art in Family Prior Art and, as well as cross-linguistic prior art references in Semantic Prior Art.
The following illustrates the summary of prior art references relevant to US7773588B2. As 10 rejection prior art references were cited by the US examiner, 65 backward citations are found in Family Prior Art, together with 6 First Degree Art, 30 Second Degree Art, and 258 relevant Semantic Prior Art. In addition, four Non-Patent Literature references were cited. Please note that each bar is UNCLICKABLE. For more details, go on to the corresponding tabs.