Generating Reminder/Extension Dates to Diary Rules and Diary Events A series of Diary Rules are defined within the IPSS database, these rules are defined by the relevant module that they refer to e.g. Patents, Trademarks, Agreements, Information Files, Oppositions etc. The rules are also country related, depending on the rules applicable to that country. New, updated or amended Rules can be downloaded (by those clients who subscribe to the rules download), from the IPSS Master database. (See separate document, re rules download). The diary consists of manual and automatically generated items, for example, if an action has to be completed by a date that has been set from a previous action, then a diary action can be automatically generate from the original date. A typical diary screen is shown below:
Each diary item has a due date. It is possible to have a number of reminders set up, for example leading up to the actual due date. These reminders can be viewed by clicking on the diary rule key which is highlighted in blue. Clicking on PCT31M generates the following reminder:
In this instance a reminder No 2 has been created to give a reminder up to the actual due date. A series of reminders can be generated and the recommended reminder numbers are: reminder 1 = Due Date reminders 2-5 = reminders up to the due date reminder 6 = Fatal (Final) reminders 7-10 = Extension reminders up to the fatal date. (Suitable only where extensions can be granted) Editing of the diary rules to add/remove reminders and extensions is undertaken by going to diary rules from the main search screen and choosing which rules set you want to edit eg patent country rules
Complete as many of the fields across the top of the screen in order to find the rule you wish to add reminders to: For example if you wish to add reminders to a rule that generates the due date to file an appeal brief for a US patent case the following fields can be completed/partially completed: Law rule key (these are a maximum of 6 letters and have been chosen as far as possible to reflect the law rule they represent) leave blank if not known or try eg APPEAL Country US Property P Base Date leave blank Rule Type D (for diary) Description add words that may be useful to find the relevant law rule eg appeal brief Active Y Then click ENTER to narrow the rules displayed to enable the relevant one to be found
Open the relevant rule and click on the diary entries to open up the due dates list
This rule already has reminders up to the due date reminder 2 and extensions up to the fatal date, reminders 7 to 10. To add a further reminder before the due date eg Appeal Brief Due in 7 dys enter the following: Type R3 Reminder No 3 Legend Appeal Brief Due in 7 days Days 7 Critical N
And SAVE the record. The new reminder is added to the rules.
NOTE that choice of the legend 7 days automatically substracts 7 days from the due date. HOWEVER for extensions note that, for example, reminder 7 which is 1 month subtracts 1 month from the fatal date but is representative of a 4 month extension to the due date so the legend and months do not match up. Editing of the diary events to add/remove reminders and extensions is undertaken by going to diary events from the main search screen and choosing which events set you want to edit eg patent country diary events. Then follow through to find the relevant event and add reminders/extensions as described for diary rules.