Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton announced the launch of an enhanced patent prosecution extranet – the KT Extranet. This secure web portal offers clients unparalleled access to their patent portfolios, including a visually compelling executive summary of a company’s patent portfolio and patent family trees.
 
The KT Extranet, which is offered at no cost to clients, is accessible 24/7/365 by computer, tablet and/or smart phone.  Portions of the KT Extranet are patent pending.
 
Key features of the KT Extranet include:
 
·        patent family trees showing relationships between patent applications;

·        a browse-friendly forest of patent family trees showing a company’s entire portfolio;

·        status, calendar, and docket information for each patent application; and

·        downloadable, exportable data.
 
“We looked far and wide for third party solutions that organize and display patent IP the way that companies manage it:  in the paradigm of families or groups of families.  But the third party solutions were either ‘over-wired’ and expensive or simply spreadsheet-based and uninspired,” said Kilpatrick Townsend Partner Mark Mathison.
 
Kilpatrick Townsend Partner Charles Calkins added, “KT poured its internal engineering resources into a client-centered solution that we tested and polished for our own use.  The result is a time and money saver not only for our busy clients but for our attorneys who serve them.”
 
Several features of the KT Extranet can benefit clients immediately.
 
First, a client can learn about their company’s patent portfolio without having to sift through the company’s emails, docket, or databases.  The executive summary (see attached visual document) lays out an overview of the company’s patent filings.  Everything can be filtered by a company’s R&D area or in-house counsel, which can be helpful for those who manage a particular company division or product.
 
Second, a client can find a particular patent or application using a company’s own reference number, application number, publication number, etc., or by browsing the forest of family trees(see attached visual document), which is sometimes quicker than typing in a number.  Once found, data for an application reveals the next docket action and who, specifically which attorney or patent agent at the firm, is actually performing the work.
 
Third, company executives will appreciate the elegance of patent family trees (see attached visual document).  Each box within a tree represents a patent application and is flagged for its country of filing.  The tree conveys a progression from early provisional applications at the top to later national phase and continuation/divisional applications at the bottom.  Automatically rendered with the latest, color-coded statuses from KT’s database, users can cut and paste the trees into company presentations or reports.
 
Fourth, paralegals can download patent filing particulars and other data into Excel.  Besides the time savings, this can minimize transcription errors into other databases or simply be stored for recordkeeping.
 
Fifth, clients are given access to the KT Extranet free of charge.  The charts, graphs, tables, and other content are generated automatically from the same database that is meticulously updated as part of Kilpatrick Townsend’s normal patent prosecution.
 
These benefits of the KT Extranet can save time and money.  Companies may wish to forgo proprietary or third party patent-tracking databases.  At the very least, it can delay the need at small and mid-size companies—and is available today.