This article gives an overview of the information you can find in the IDS Analyser module. 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Where to find the IDS Analyser

You'll find the link to this module in the Equinox left-hand sidebar of US patent cases only.

How the IDS Analyser works

The IDS Analyser lets you quickly check if you need to file an additional IDS on your US application. 

For each published U.S. application, this module analyses citations already known to the U.S. office (by automatically importing patents from previously filed IDS, office actions, etc.) and compares them with citations from all members of the patent family. It will help you automatically detect prior art that may have been cited to the USPTO and, if necessary, generate the IDS to comply with US patent regulations.

The IDS analyser has three major objectives and lets you:

  • Verify if prior art cited in other family members' procedures have already been correctly submitted to the USPTO

  • Verify and monitor the interest in submitting new prior art by providing access to patent descriptions

  • Facilitate the generation of a new IDS by pre-filling the IDS Generator fields

Sources used for the citation analysis

The system uses Questel's Orbit Intelligence database.

  • The CT field is used to list the citations

  • Importing citation from previously filed IDS

  • The FAMPAT grouping is used as a basis to list the members of the families to be analysed.

Cases the IDS analyser is available for

This module is accessible for each US patent.

Note: You can only launch the analysis when the patent has been published.

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Module Description

The module is split into 5 parts:

  • List of cited prior art for USxx/xxx,xxx 

  • List of prior arts cited by USxx/xxx,xxx family members

  • List of prior arts cited in related matter families

  • List of other prior art

  • New IDS suggestion: 3 patent(s) and 2 NPL (on the right)

List of cited prior art for USxx/xxx,xxx 

This section lists all the patents and NPLs (Non Patent Literature) that are cited in the US prosecution. These patents (or foreign equivalents) and NPLs are not intended to be resubmitted to the USPTO. Links to the official documents are available to check if all citations are correctly listed. 

It's also possible to manually add one or more missing citations if needed.

 

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List of prior arts cited by USxx/xxx,xxx family members

This part lists all the family members of the studied US patent (based on the FAMPAT structure). 

For each member, the system lists the patents and NPLs (Non Patent Literature) that have been cited in their respective prosecutions. If these patents (or foreign equivalents) or NPLs have not yet been cited with the USPTO, they should be checked to evaluate the relevance of adding them in a new IDS. 

The "status" column indicates whether the citation has already been cited or not. If the citation isn't relevant, simply deselect it and it won't be added to the new IDS suggestion.

A link to the description is available by clicking on the number.

It's also possible to manually add one or more missing citations. 

Note: Manually adding any missing citations will relaunch the analysis.

 

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If a family is technically very close to the US studied patent (for example with a common priority), it may be interesting to add it and to also analyse their citations. The system will then list all the citations of all the members of the "related family". These citations will also be analysed.

You can view all citations by clicking on the number and deselect it if it isn't relevant. It will then be removed from the IDS suggestion.

In case of common priority, the system can automatically make one or more related families suggestions. 

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List of other prior art

Tsection allows you to add prior art (patent or NPL). These citations will also be taken into account during the analysis.

For example, if you're aware of patents or documents relevant to this invention, you can easily check if they've already been cited in other related prosecution.

You can add prior art citations in two ways:

  • Manually

  • Via csv 

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New IDS suggestion: 3 patent(s) and 2 NPL (on the right)

Based on the citations known by the USPTO and the citations from the different family members (+ those from related families and those added manually in the "List of other prior art" section), the system lists the citations unknown to the USPTO and suggests the creation of a new IDS.

You can view the descriptions by clicking on the number and to remove them if necessary.

 

The "Generate report" button lets you export in csv format all the citations.

The button "Generate IDS " lets you create the IDS in the official format. 

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