TIP Tool Terminology
Abandoned Application – Once the Applicant intends to abandon their patent rights, it becomes abandoned even though not designated that way at the patent office. If the Applicant is non-responsive to actions from the patent office or fails to pay fees, an application becomes abandoned. The Applicant can also expressly abandon a patent with the patent office.
Account – Defined by emails/domains whitelisted for Magic Link access. There must be an Admin Role with account credentials, but that can be any of the Manager, Inventor, or Prosecutor Role. Where the Prosecutor Role is the Account holder, they are the Admin Role by default.
Account Holder – Person who has login access to the TIP tool. The Account Holder always has the Admin Role for the Account if there is only one for the Account. Payments are only possible from Account Holders, but temporary and limited access can be given by the Admin Role to others whitelisted for the account. The Admin Role can be moved to whoever is responsible for payments where there are multiple Account Holders.
Admin Panel – Allows Admin Role to modify settings for a given Account. A prosecutor with multiple client accounts will have separate Admin Panels for each and can switch context between them.
Admin Role – The Role of the Account Holder that has login access to the account. For paid tiers, this individual has entered payment information. Admin rights for the Account are held by the Admin Role. There can be multiple individuals with Admin Roles on the Account.
Affirmed / Reversed – The outcome of an appeal, indicating whether the PTAB agreed with the examiner’s rejection (Affirmed) or ruled in favour of the applicant (Reversed), which can also apply to individual claims on a claim-by-claim basis.
Aggregated Examiners – A comparative baseline metric that compiles historical performance data from all USPTO examiners who have interacted with a specific prosecutor across their application history.
Allowance Rate – The percentage of closed patent applications (issued patents vs. abandoned applications) that successfully result in a grant, used to find the historical success rate or likelihood of allowance for a prosecutor, examiner, or Group Art Unit.
Appeal – A formal legal proceeding initiated by the applicant to challenge an examiner’s final rejection before the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB).
Applicant – Party applying for the patent application. This can be the Inventor(s) or Assignee.
Application – An unissued matter filed at the patent office is an Application. Some Applications may be abandoned, while others are issued as Patents.
Assignee – The legal entity, corporation, or organisation that holds the ownership rights to the patent application or issued patent, often imported into the analytics framework as the client or applicant.
Average Grant Time – The mean duration (typically measured in years or days) from an application’s original filing date to its official patent issuance date.
Expired Patent – A Patent that was once enforceable and either past its full term or was abandoned.
Final Rejection – A subsequent notice indicating that the applicant’s previous response did not fully clear all rejections. This officially closes regular prosecution, meaning the applicant must now appeal, abandon the application, or file an RCE (Request for Continued Examination) to keep negotiating.
Function Tab – Different functions of the TIP Tool are broken down into a tabbed interface. Additional tabs may be added or removed based upon your tier of service and various enhancements to the TIP Tool. Even though the interface breaks down things by tab, the underlying data in your portfolio is linked together regardless of the presentation layer.
GAU (Group Art Unit) – A specific cluster of patent examiners at the USPTO who specialise in a particular technology sector. Understanding your GAU is critical for prosecution strategy, which is why tools like the Art Unit Predictor are used to forecast where an application will land.
Idea – This is the lowest common denominator of the patent system. The patent office only allows one idea or innovation to be examined in each application, although the Specification may disclose many different ideas. The TIP Tool is organised around ideas in the Idea Manager and applications in the Portfolio Manager.
Idea Form – It is a form to capture an invention and surrounding details with the intent of possibly patenting. It is also popularly known as the Invention Disclosure Form (IDF).
Idea Manager – Function tab in the TIP Tool that allows capture of new ideas and moves them between various phases in the pre-filing pipeline.
Inventor Role – Each matter allows entry of inventor emails who each have the Inventor Role. Once a matter is filed at the patent office, the inventor is defined by who is listed at the patent office. The Idea Manager is locked down for the Inventor Role to only see ideas where they are listed, and movement in the pipeline is restricted, along with other options the Manager Role might specify.
Magic Link – To make access to TIP frictionless, single-use links can be emailed to any email address or domain whitelisted by the Owner. This removes the need for an account login and uses the security of your email system to lock down access to only those individuals who are whitelisted to access according to their Role.
Manager – Role that is specified for a particular idea or filing. The specified manager(s) can move the idea in the pre-filing pipeline, specify value, assign counsel, and/or other things that an inventor role cannot. By default, the Admin Role is also the Manager Role where there is a single Account Holder.
Matter – This may be an Idea in the Idea Manager or Portfolio Tabs. Multiple Ideas may be mapped to a filed matter. Where there are multiple ideas in an Application, the user specifies which is claimed and which are disclosed in the TIP Tool when transitioning to the drafting phase.
Non-Final Rejection – An official notice from the patent examiner raising initial rejections or objections against the claims. This gives the applicant a standard opportunity to respond with arguments or amendments to overcome the issues without paying extra continuation fees or RCE fees.
Non-Provisional Application – The formal, fully structured application that is actually examined by the patent office. It must include a complete specification, drawings, and at least one definitive claim.
Novelty – One of the universal requirements across the world needed before your patent application would be approved. Another way to think of this is that if your innovation lacks novelty over the Prior Art, you were not the inventor.
Office Action – An official document from a patent examiner detailing why an application’s claims are being rejected or allowed. These typically fall into “Non-Final” or “Final” categories and require a formal, timely response.
Office Actions Before Issuance – The tracking metric that counts the total number of official rejections or objections (Non-Final and Final) issued by an examiner before a patent application is allowed.
Patent – Claimed Idea that was issued and enforceable in the given jurisdiction issuing the Patent. The attached claims define the scope of the patent and not the description in the Specification.
Patentability Score – Likelihood the idea would issue as a patent. This score is dynamic and can change throughout the phases of the process.
Patent Term – Once an Application is issued, it begins its Patent Term and can be enforced in court through a legal proceeding. An Expired Patent has ended its Patent Term by being expressly abandoned, cancelled by the patent office or administrative challenge or through non-payment of annuities or patent taxes. The patent term is 20 years from the earliest nonprovisional priority date plus any patent term extension granted by the patent office due to their delay.
Phase – Is the different stages of a matter as it progresses through the process. Before filing, we have the capture, vetting, drafting, and filing phases. For each filed matter, we have the argument, granted, issued, and expired phases.
Pipeline – The workflow concept of an idea progressing through the various phases of the process. Process management of the pipeline is a goal of the TIP Tool to efficiently achieve the enterprise goals.
Portfolio – A distinct, isolated workspace in the TIP tool containing the complete set of Ideas, Applications, and Patents for specific assignees. Users can switch between Portfolios to manage different companies, divisions, or clients without data bleed, unless manually overlapped.
Prior Art – Any patent or other publication that predates your innovation’s priority date. Prior art that discloses your innovation means your patent application lacks novelty.
Prosecutor – An individual licensed to represent others in front of the Patent Office.
Prosecutor Role – The Role of an attorney or agent licensed to practice patent law in the jurisdiction. Must have an active registration number in the U.S. that is stored in the TIP tool.
Provisional Application – A relatively low-cost, informal legal document filed at the patent office that secures a 12-month “priority date” bookmark. It is never examined on its own and expires unless a formal Non-Provisional Application is filed within the year.
RCE (Request for Continued Examination) – A procedural request filed to reopen examination anytime patent prosecution is formally closed, most commonly after a Final Office Action, but also after a Notice of Allowance or while an application is under appeal. It allows the applicant to submit new arguments, amendments, or evidence to keep negotiating with the same examiner without needing to file a brand-new application.
Role – Individuals have four Roles at TIP Tool™, namely, Admin, Manager, Inventor, and Prosecutor. Each has a different perspective on the Account with different access. The Account holder is the Admin Role by default even though they may have other Roles too. Roles are not mutually exclusive, so access/functionality increases with the different roles of an individual.
Slate™ – Patent viewer tool that reformats a specification to make it more readable on a computer screen. Sections are moved around into a more logical format along with other enhancements.
Specification – This is the entire patent application with claims, detailed description, figures, etc. and forms the four corners of your Application. The specification should be more comprehensive than the claims, but cannot be augmented after filing without at least partially changing the priority date for any new matter.
Tag – Filter term specified by a user or automatically generated for each matter under management by the TIP Tool. The inventor, manager, docket number, serial number, examiner, prosecutor, firm, and other fields are tags that can be used to filter your portfolio.
Time for Issuance – Based on our tool, we are measuring from the filing date to the grant date. However, the original definition is from the Notice of Allowance to the grant date.
TIP – Acronym for Triangle IP, Inc.
TIP Tool – SAAS software for organising your patent portfolio from innovation through issuance and beyond. The basic functionality is broken down into Idea Manager and Portfolio tabs, although additional functionality can be added through consulting services, additional tabs, mini tools, etc.
USPTO – United States Patent and Trademark Office is the agency that registers all patents and trademarks. There are patent offices across the world as patent rights are acquired country-by-country except for certain regional patents that allow coordinating some or all of the patent process.
Value Score – Subjective scoring by users that indicates the value of the idea (as claimed or that will be claimed) to the assignee. This can change over time, and the trend is archived. The score may be completely different when contemplating the enforcement of the patent.