For many years it has been possible to recycle ADS bibliographic (“bib”) data from a parent case into a child case. To do this, you find the old ADS and export the bib data in XML format. Then you import the XML file into a new ADS. Often you will find that before you import the XML file into the new ADS, you need to edit the XML file using Notepad.
USPTO has just announced a new EFS-Web functionality with the catchy name Enhanced Initial Web-based Application Data Sheet. I’ll call it EIWADS.
To use EIWADS, download and print out USPTO’s instructions. With EIWADS, you start a new filing project in EFS-Web. Then you pick Web-based ADS. What’s new with EIWADS is that you can then scroll down to a box called “Application Information Retrieval”. You enter an application number and confirmation code for the parent case, and click “show”.
What will then happen, if all goes well, is that most of the bib data from the parent case will auto-populate into the web-based ADS for the child case. You can then edit the bib data and add new items of bib data.
The potential benefit of EIWADS is that you get to save having to re-key at least some of the bib data.
What is unfortunate is that the ADS generated by EIWADS does not get auto-loaded into Palm and the other USPTO systems. As I discuss here, in recent years USPTO has chipped away at the auto-loading of such bib data.