System and method for information disclosure statement management and prior art cross-citation control
OwnerSteven W. Lundberginventor
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The present inventive subject matter relates to document management, more particularly to a system and method for information disclosure statement management and prior art cross-citation control. Various embodiments of the present inventive subject matter include systems and methods for controlling the cross-citation and propagation of prior art reference documents from one patent case to another. Some embodiments may include propagation control user interfaces which display to a user sets of patent cases as potential source documents of prior art. In some embodiments, characteristics of the prior art may be identified and used as the basis for selecting and controlling the cross-citation of prior art.
Claims8
A method comprising:
- maintaining a patent case database, wherein the database includes data about each case,
- receiving reference documents into the database;
- identifying a first case in the database as a target case for potential propagation and cross-citation to it of at least one reference document;
- identifying a first set of patent cases related to the first case as potential source cases of the at least one reference document;
- displaying to a user the identity of the potential source cases and the at least one reference document;
- receiving user input identifying and selecting one or more cross-citation characteristics of the at least one reference document, and
- associating the at least one reference document with the first case based on the selection of the one or more cross-citation characteristics.
A system comprising:
- a processor;
- a memory;
- software operable on the processor to:
- maintain a patent case database, wherein the database includes data about each case,
- receive reference documents into the database;
- identify a first case in the database as a target case for potential propagation and cross-citation to it of at least one reference document;
- identify a first set of patent cases related to the first case as potential source cases of the at least one reference document;
- display to a user the identity of the potential source cases and the at least one reference document;
- receive user input identifying and selecting one or more cross-citation characteristics of the at least one reference document, and
- associate the at least one reference document with the first case based on the selection of the one or more cross-citation characteristics.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.