Life of a Paralegal before and after the IDS Manager
“You don’t know the value of the best until you’ve experienced the worst,” I blurted out loud as I went through the journal of a paralegal, amazed at how his life took a turn for the best.
While scrolling through my daily emails, I stumbled across an email shared by one of our IDS Manager clients. Since I am on the marketing team, I try to make the most of the appreciation our company receives, and this review by the client was a little different.
Leonard is a paralegal, and this means he has to handle the tasks of preparing and uploading references to the USPTO’s EFS-Web database and even reviewing citations for accuracy. Excuse me if I could not cover the humongous tasks that you, as the paralegal, must tick off from your to-do list in this article. I believe it’s simply impossible to list them all down in a go.
Well, the most I could learn about a paralegal’s life was from Leonard’s email.
Speaking of the email, when I said this review on our IDS Manager was different, I was not just saying it for the sake of it. The email was actually a journal entry and how our IDS Manager had changed Lenoard’s day-to-day work!
Without creating much suspense here, I leave it to you to uncover why Leonard decided to share his journal as a review.
A typical day for a Paralegal
8:55 am – Started the day early (self-pat on back). It’s Monday, and I am ready to smash the to-do list. The new coffee tastes unique (maybe a little weird). Not sure if buying local flavor from the festival over the weekend was a good idea, but the seller had good persuasion skills.
9:00 am – Let me scan the inbox. Some people don’t leave the office on weekends (sounds like me a few years back)! Just 28 emails, not so bad. Lots of non-English foreign office actions shouldn’t have uninstalled Duolingo.
10:00 am – Time for the weekly team meeting. Looks like we will have a long day ahead; everyone has a lot of IDS to file. Maybe we should hire more people for the team.
11:00 am – (back to the desk, coffee was not that bad) – Let me start with the foreign office action cases first, as they take a lot of effort and energy. Best to get over with them first. Korean Office action with 60 references, and it’s a scanned image (can’t copy-paste, I scream, tearing my hair out)!!! After a deep breath, I pull up my sleeves and start typing the references manually. All the while wondering, is this really how it should be in the 21st century?
12:00 pm – Just got done with the first Korean office action. I am wondering what kind of invention this is! 60 references! That’s a lot of inspiration for a single idea. As I pull up the US counterpart and prepare the IDS. Woah! It’s a big family with 4 US members. Now, I have to do all these 4 times. Great!
Let me check this history; this is the 5th IDS. Time to pull up all the old IDS files and make a comparison if there’s any duplicate reference that has already been cited (I am wondering, it would be so easy with a photographic memory, I can simply recall all the past references without missing a single detail!)
1:00 pm – After reviewing 85 references from the old IDS, I find 4 duplicate references. I can skip these numbers happily now since they were cited before in previous IDS.
But wait, I forgot to check the family members. What if some of the family members were cited in the old IDS instead of the original reference?
I am feeling hungry now! Time for the lunch break.
2:00 pm – This pizza from the weekend festival is still fresh. Looks like I should revisit the eatery next week, too.
3:00 pm – I am back to work and start checking the family members from the old IDS. It’s now 255 references in total. Found 3 more duplicates from the family. I can skip 7 references now.
4:00 pm – I am collecting the PDF copies of 53 references. Daydreaming about what the world would look like if there were no captcha. Where I don’t have to prove my humanity to get a PDF document. Also, cursing some of the patent offices for their slow speed and bad interface. My daughter can draw better with crayons.
5:00 pm – I realize that 26 references are in foreign languages. Now I have to look at the English counterpart and include them. USPTO examiners only read English.
5:30 pm – 6 references have no English counterpart. Need to translate the PDF copies to English (wondering if USPTO Examiners should learn foreign languages).
6:00 pm – Finally, I have all the material required to file the IDS. 53 original PDFs, 20 English counterpart PDFs, and six machine translations. That’s heavy IDS filing!
I will share the packages for filing at the USPTO and call it a day.
On the way back, I realized the coffee was, after all, not that bad.
After subscribing to the IDS Manager
8:55 am – Oh, a new Korean office action!
8:56 am – Uploading it to IDS Manager
8:57 am – IDS Package ready to be shared with USPTO with all the checks (OCR’ed and extracted the references automatically, fetched PDF automatically, checked previous IDS for duplicity, found English counterparts, added automated translations, created packages with SB08 form, and attorney signature for other US members too)
8:58 am – I wonder what to do for the rest of the day when the office starts at 9:00!
Sip weird flavored coffee. I should write to GreyB!
Well, this is the best appreciation email I read, mainly because as I went through it, I could feel the tension in the initial entries, and then BAM! The impact of the IDS Manager was loud and clear.
But you don’t have to listen to Leonard or me when you can experience all of it firsthand.
Learn more about our IDS Manager and observe your to-do list getting shorter. Fill in the form below to book your trial right away.
Author: Anmol Saini, Product Development Team
