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Rowan Patents Release Notes

List of updates to the Integrated Drafting Environment

Dave Billmaier avatar
Written by Dave Billmaier
Updated over a week ago

RELEASE 3.22.3 (September 19, 2024)

Application Drafting Module

In-Document Drafting Library

In the Tools Window, there is now a Drafting Library tab from which you can add reusable content components directly into that draft application. We've also added in-line options to insert figures and terms directly into that draft application.

For more information, check out the Drafting Library article.

Global Paragraph Numbering Setting

There is now an option in the Settings (in Document Styles) to turn on or off the paragraph numbering globally for a file.

We also updated the application templates to conform the styles to these settings. If you are an existing user, you can download the new templates here, and you can learn how can update these templates in Rowan Patents here.

Chem/Bio/Pharma — Improved R-group management

Improved R-Group and definition tagging from within the specification using the "Convert to R-Group" option.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • The combinations generator now includes an "and" in the string of combinations.

  • The landing page now includes links to help articles for drafting Bio/Chem/Pharma applications

  • Improved the "undo" experience when using the new dynamic label feature

Office Action Response Module

Improvements and Fixes

  • Added validation warnings when referring to a canceled claim and provided indicators in the claim tree

RELEASE 3.21.1 (August 15, 2024)

Application Drafting Module

Introducing Rowan GenAI Assistants

These new Rowan GenAI Assistants use a local language model and generative AI to assist you in drafting select parts of your application. This initial version uses your claim language to generate draft text for the Title, Technical Field/Field of Invention, Background, Brief Summary, and Abstract sections of your application.

A local language model (Microsoft phi-3-mini) is downloaded to your system so that any patent matter you provide as input remains secure and local to you. Rowan has created pre-built generative AI workflows for each assistant that are also stored and run locally. No data are transmitted out of your system for any part of these generations.

The Rowan GenAI Assistants are currently enabled for users or organizations by request only. Contact your Account Manager or Tracy Campbell to request access. If GenAI features are already enabled for you or your organization, you will automatically get these new Rowan GenAI Assistants.

Label Management and Label Reference Syncing

We are extending one of the capabilities users tell us they value in Rowan Patents —syncing of content across the document.

This new feature manages the ordering and numbering of label elements in your specification. For example, if you have multiple tables, Rowan will automatically number the tables based on their order in the specification.

And, you can use the autocomplete to reference those table labels as synced data objects. If the order of the table labels changes, all references will automatically update to reflect the changes.

You can insert labels for tables, equations, images, or any custom label you create. The insert options can be found in the Specification menu, or by using a new shortcut by typing the forward-slash (/) key.

Bio/Chem/Pharma - Generate and insert a Sequence Table

We've added an option to the Sequence Sidebar where you can insert an entire table of the sequences listed in the Sequence Manager. For more information, check out the Insert Sequence Data into an Application help article.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • We've rearranged some settings including moving the Profanity List setting under the Settings tab and clarifying what settings are at a user level and file level.

  • Claim auto-suggest drop-downs now include references to part names when only the reference number is to be inserted

  • The right sidebar options have been reordered to make adjacent all Bio/Chem/Pharma options (for those who have those features)

  • Addressed an issue where claims with paragraphs containing only spaces would fail to generate a flowchart

  • Addressed an issue where equations would not get transferred in certain transformations

  • Addressed an issue where some content in imported MathML elements could cause a file to be unopenable

  • Addressed a UI issue where closing the merge parts popover would inadvertently show a confirmation dialogue

  • Addressed an issue in the Combinations generator where no more than six items could be selected to be included

  • Addressed an issue where zooming out after entering a custom zoom percentage was inconsistent

  • Addressed a UI issue where an error message would display after clicking save on a new term

Office Action Response Module

Improvements and Fixes

  • Addressed an issue where amendments cause the status indicator to show as amended

  • Adjusted list formatting to display correctly

  • Re-arranged the boilerplate inserts sidebar to be in alphanumeric order

  • Addressed an issue where the image controls would not fully display

  • Addressed an issue in issue identification when Examiners use "thru"

RELEASE 3.20.3 (July 12, 2024)

This is a quick release to address an issue found in release 3.20.2 (June 28, 2024).

  • Addressed an issue with the Rowan AI Assistant backend, where launching the process caused the program to crash.

RELEASE 3.20.2 (June 28, 2024)

With this release, we are adding the first phase of the Rowan Patents Drafting Library along with some other improvements and fixes.

Drafting Library (part 1)

You can now manage, search, and reuse prior patent application content to use as a starting point.

The Drafting Library takes advantage of the Rowan patent-specific file format, allowing for targeted searching within prior patent applications for terms, definitions, parts, figures, and claim or specification language.

You can point to one or more directories where your existing Rowan Patents files are stored (locally, or in the cloud). And, with recent introductions of Application Import, and previous methods of converting prior application drafts to Rowan Patents files it's fairly easy to build up a repository of searchable files.

And, this is only the beginning. We have more Drafting Library developments in the works to make it even easier to reuse existing content components to build your new application.

NOTE: The Drafting Library indexes the files in your selected directories. Initial indexing speed can vary depending on the number of Rowan Patent files you have in your source directories. Subsequent indexing is much faster. It progressively loads indexed files and you can begin searching during indexing.

Application Drafting Module

Specification Zoom

You can now zoom the specification document separate from the entire window.

Adjustable Right Sidebar

You can now adjust the horizontal size of the right sidebar in the main application window.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • Improved handling of imported equations in which the SVG would cause Rowan Patents file to be un-openable

  • Clarified several tooltips and text strings

  • Chem/Bio: Addressed an issue for handling Biovia-generated chemical structures by adding support for an old versions of the .NET Framework

Office Action Response Module

Improvements and Fixes

  • Improves handling of PDF versions of Office actions where there is mostly blank page between the first two pages (forms) and the beginning of the examiner remarks

  • Improves identification of the entire rejection issue statement when the examiner used a specific format with a slash for citing publication numbers (e.g. U.S. Patent/Pub. No. 2008/1234567 A1)

  • Addressed an issue where centrally managed attorney metadata was not updating as a result of the data being cached

RELEASE 3.19.3 (May 21, 2024)

This new release of Rowan Patents includes a way to jumpstart new draft patent applications. It also includes several other improvements and fixes.

Application Drafting Module

Application Drafting Templates

This new feature allows practitioners and teams to create and manage the starting point for new applications.

To start with, Rowan Patents now includes eight additional templates optimized for starting new applications by technical area and jurisdiction. The default templates are customizable to meet further the preferences of the practitioner and/or the client.

And, there's a way to add and manage additional templates by adding additional files as templates. See the Manage Applications Templates support article for more information.

Export Summary

If something goes wrong with your export, the Export Summary will provide more transparency on what may be happening with your files. And even if you never see an export issue, we've included an option to make it more convenient to access your files directly from the Export Summary.

Help Shortcuts

We've provided new Patent Application Help and Office Action Response Help shortcuts on our landing screen to help you access help documentation, send us an email, and contact our support team.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • The Application/Publication import now shows a clearer notification message when importing non-US publications

  • Figures that contain imported .bmp formatted images will now export with those images

  • Addresses an issue where certain images imported in a specific PNG format wouldn't export properly

  • Added a "Numbered Paragraph" option to the paragraph styles menu in the toolbar

  • Content generation templates (e.g. claim transformations, brief summary) can now be found under "Settings" in the Tools window

Office Action Response Module

Cited Art OCR and Annotation

Sometimes, the PDFs of the cited art we automatically retrieve from our sources do not contain an OCR or text layer. This means we can't annotate the cited art with pin cites.

This release includes an option to OCR any of the cited art that hasn't already been OCRd.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • Claim indenting styles are now better represented in the response shell

  • Singularly canceled claims in the prior claim set should no longer show up as a range in the exported response shell

RELEASE 3.18.1 (April 23, 2024)

Application Drafting Module

New Application Import

We added a new way to import the text of a specification along with the figures simultaneously. The imported content is converted into the Rowan Patents integrated drafting environment which automatically captures terms, definitions, and active part numbers, syncing the parts in the figures to their references in the specification.

This can be done by entering a publication number for a US publication or by providing the specification and figures as files (docx and pdf).

Drawing Zoom

We have revised the way zooming works in the drawing tool to be more consistent with other applications.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • Addressed an issue with exporting a specific table

  • Addressed an issue where an equation with a non-latin character would cause an error when exporting

Office Action Response Module

  • Addressed an issue with some specific templates where bookmarks with no rejections issues are not removed

RELEASE 3.17.3 (April 15, 2024)

This release addresses an issue with importing Visio files.

RELEASE 3.17.2 (April 9, 2024)

This release contains some general improvements and fixes.

Application Drafting Module

No Figures User Experience

We adjusted the User Experience to account for those applications without figures. When deleting the last remaining figure, you will see a prompt to add a figure in both the drawing tool and as a placeholder in the Detailed Description section of the specification.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • Addresses an issue with some SVG images not being formatted with a black fill in Word as a result of a change Microsoft made in a recent version of Word. This generally affects all users of Word and we have reported the issue to Microsoft. For users of Rowan Patents, we have developed a way around this issue to set the graphic fill so that certain imported SVGs or equations generated in Rowan Patents will display properly in Word.

  • Addresses a separate issue where imported SVG images would not display correctly.

Office Action Response Module

Addresses the following issues:

  • Imported amended claims would cut off prematurely if an entire paragraph was deleted using track changes in Word.

  • Some claim markup would not appear properly on the Add & Review Claims page.

  • Claim templates that use automatic list numbering for section headers would also include numbering as flat text.

  • Cited art would not be properly identified when the examiner used a numbered suffix to differentiate the same inventor name on different pieces of cited art.

RELEASE 3.16.4 (March 28, 2024)

This is a quick release to address an issue related to the new Table Border Properties feature introduced in 3.16.2 (March 20, 2024)

  • Addressed an issue where tables created in MS Word had some specific border and cell formatting that was not compatible with Rowan Patents export logic and therefore would fail to export the file back to docx

RELEASE 3.16.3 (March 21, 2024)

This is a quick release to address an issue that cropped up in the previous release (3.16.2).

  • Addressed an issue where the "terminal" or "done block" flowchart stencil became misshaped

RELEASE 3.16.2 (March 20, 2024)

Application Drafting Module

Context Assistance

Keep track of related content throughout the document. Click the lightbulb icon in the right-hand sidebar to scan a listed application text related to the text near your cursor. Click any of the excerpts to bring that portion of your work on screen for you to examine more closely.

Table Border Properties

Set the border style (solid, dashed, etc.), weight, and grayscale for cells, columns, rows, or the entire table.

Drawing Tool Improvements

- Menu options for adding parts from the parts list to the canvas

- Menu option to delete a figure part (x00)

- Improved behaviors when interacting with both locked and unlocked elements

Rowan AI Chat (Optional GenAI Feature)

For those of you who have this configured to be on, the Rowan AI Chat is now pointing to the GPT 4 model (gpt-4-turbo-preview) via the Open AI API.

If you are interested in trying or learning more about the optional Rowan AI Chat, please contact us.

Other Improvements and Fixes

- Addressed issue when pasting equations from MS Word

- Improved claim transformations (e.g. Method to CRM) for certain verbs and for multiple "wherein" clauses

Office Action Response Module

Improvements and Fixes

  • Addressed an issue where links in the Summary tab to documents in the file wrapper returned an error


RELEASE 3.15.1 (February 20, 2024)

Application Drafting Module

Rowan AI Chat - Prompt Assistance

We've added an enhancement to Rowan AI Chat — Prompt Assistance. Prompt Assistance automatically searches the draft application for content related to the prompt. That related content is added to the prompt, providing more context to help improve the resulting generated text. As always, the user is in full control of the text being sent to the Large Language Model (LLM).

Note: Rowan AI Chat is part of the Integrated Drafting Environment subscription as an optional feature. Please contact us if you would like it made available to you or your organization.

Add Figures From the Specification

You can now add a new figure description (and new figure in the drawing tool) from within the Brief and Detailed Figure description sections of the specification. Just hover before or after figure descriptions to expose the option to add a new figure.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • DRAWINGS: Added a new (and hopefully more discoverable) way to add a Figure Part (e.g. Part 200)

  • DRAWINGS: Adjusted the element selection model making it easier to select multiple parts -- e.g. drag-select parts on top of a background image

  • DRAWINGS: Addressed an issue where elements could be moved off the canvas with the arrow keys

  • ABSTRACT: Added more text padding at the bottom of the Abstract section

Office Action Response Module

  • Addressed an issue where markup of the prior claim set was not being handled properly

  • Fixed some menu option styling


RELEASE 3.14.1 (January 19, 2024)

Happy New Year! Here's our first release of the year which contains some new functionality and improvements many of you have requested...

Preparation Module

Export Separate Sections of the Specification

You now have the option to export the claims, abstract, and/or description separately for both the clean and marked up versions of a specification. These options appear in the export dialogue.

Drawing Tool

  • Rotate Text — you can enable the rotation of text, say for labeling an axis of a graph. Note: Because this setting allows rotation of any text, we have added a caution to help ensure such rotation is not in conflict with Patent Office guidelines -- e.g. 1.84(i)

  • Rotate Image with Page Orientation — there is now an option to rotate the background image when changing the page orientation.

Chem/Bio/Pharma

The Compound Manager now handles the SMILES format of chemical structures

Rowan AI Chat

We have upgraded the Rowan AI Chat feature to take advantage of one of OpenAI's newest GPT models (gpt-3.5-turbo-1106) allowing for more tokens (16K) and more performance.

Note: Rowan AI Chat is an optional feature that can be turned on for an individual or for an entire organization. If you're interested, please contact Tracy Campbell.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • Made refinements to the sheet panel user interface

  • Adjusted the Figure merge dialogue to accurately represent the number of figures to be merged

  • Cleaned up some tool tips to make them more accurate and understandable

  • Increased the size of the options in the list toolbar menu to make them more readable


RELEASE 3.13.3 (December 15, 2023)

This release contains some new ways of doing things and many other improvements. As this is our last planned release of the year, we would like to take this opportunity to thank you for all

New Landing Screen

The first window you see when you open Rowan Patents received a makeover, hoping to make it clearer how to get started with Rowan Patents. Plus, you can now get to your profile from this window, see the version number, and see whether an update is available. Watch this space as this new design also makes room for some planned future functionality.

Preparation Module

Drawing Window

New Sheets/Figures Panel

This combined the sheet sorter and figure navigation into the left panel of the drawing tool and added some new functionality while we were at it. For example, you can now multi-select sheets to re-order or merge them into another file. (NOTE: to merge into another file, click and hold the drag handle to drag to the sheets panel in the other file).

For those of you who are used to the previous sheet sorter, it’s still there.

Other Drawing Tool Improvements

  • The right-side element info panel can now be resized and can overlap the canvas, providing more control over screen real estate

  • You can now use the escape key to exit stamping mode

  • Addressed an issue that would minimize or expand the parts list for all duplicated figures at once

  • Adjusted the centering of a part number in a stencil stencil when it doesn’t have a part name

  • All element styles in the toolbar submenu are now visible, even when zoomed in

Main Application Window Improvements

  • Adjusted the WYSIWYG line spacing to better match the given Word style

  • Addressed an issue where the numbered list styling in Claims would revert to the default styling

  • Added the code formatting option to the app menu dropdown

  • Improved the ability to identify method claims by better handling phrasal verbs

  • Improve performances on flowchart-from-claims generation

Prosecution Module

  • Improved the fetching of Office action documents when entering an application number by including more backup options of data sources and document types

  • Improved identification of double-patenting rejections by recognizing multi-sentence rejections

  • Addressed some specific cases where images or chemical structures in claims were not getting migrated to the rolled-over claims

  • Addressed some specific cases where images or chemical structures in claims were re-sized in the exported docx file

  • Addressed an issue where claims with newlines before images or chemical structures would be cut off exported into the shell

  • Addressed an issue where list headers would not show

RELEASE 3.12.1 (November 30, 2023)

This is a one-fix release addressing an issue in the Prosecution module related to accessing USPTO databases. This improves the ability to automatically fetch Office action and claim documents from those databases when entering an application number.

RELEASE 3.12.0 (November 28, 2023)

This is a smaller release with a typing performance improvement as well as some fixes and other improvements.

Preparation Module

  • Improves typing performance when working in large files that contain many tagged elements

  • Claim-to-Summary generations will now migrate the subscript and superscript formatting from the claims to the summary

  • Addresses an issue where claim references were not tagged properly in a specific DOCX file

  • DOCX file will now open even if it contains a table in front of title

  • Addresses an issue in the drawing tool where a copy and pasted SVG image was not included in the export

Prosecution Module

  • There are now more back-up options for fetching an Office action when entering an application number should there be an issue with Patent Center.

RELEASE 3.11.2 (November 14, 2023)

This release provides you with a more WYSIWYG display of your text styles and a new Styles Editor to help you more easily format spec and claims to match your preferences. It also includes a few other improvements. Take a look...

Preparation Module

WYSIWYG Styles and New Style EditorWith the new, more representative text display, what you see in the main application window now aligns better with what you'll get on export. And, the new Styles Editor lets you update text and paragraph attributes by opening and customizing a built-in Word file. Your changes will be reflected within the Rowan display and your exported .docx files.

Window Navigation — In this release, there are new controls in the toolbar to open and navigate to the multiple windows you use to manage the different content and components of the patent application.

Merge Drawing Parts — In the parts panel, you can now consolidate drawing instances and normalize specification references for two or more part reference numerals to reflect a single desired part. Learn how to use Merge Parts here.

Other Improvements and Fixes:

  • Improved identification of figure pages (vs specification pages) when importing figures from a patent publication

  • Normalized alignment of various part reference numerals in stencils relative to the lead line

  • Addressed an issue where claim tranformations were not preserving multi-dependencies

  • Made font styling options in the toolbar active for tagged text

  • Addressed an issue where it was not possible to capitalize the first letter of tagged text

  • Fixed an issue where filtering for flagged terms in the terms sidebar did not work

  • Fixed a menu item in the parts list to accurately reflect that it will add a figure

  • Fixed an issue where Sequences (Chem/Bio) were not importing from an Excel file

Prosecution Module

Improved Handling of Misnumbered Claims — When the claim numbering in a prior claim set is not sequential, Rowan Patents will automatically correct this by entering the claim number with a (Not Entered) status.

Include Rowan Patents (.RPR) File in Shell Package — you now have the option to include the entire .rpr file as part of the downloaded zip file.

Migrating Biovia Chemical Structures to the Response Shell — This allows users who don't have a version of Biovia on their system to migrate Biovia-generated chemical structures in the claims to the resulting response shell

RELEASE 3.10.3 (October 19, 2023)

This release contains the often-requested option for more fill patterns in the drawing tool as well as other improvements and bug fixes

Preparation Module

Drawing Element Fill Options - You can now select additional fill patterns for drawing elements. In addition to the existing transparent and white fill, there is now a black, cross-hatch, diagonal lines, dotted, grid and checkerboard fill.

As a result, we also added an option to set the label/reference number with a white fill.

Other Drawing Tool Improvements and Fixes

  • Added an inline "add part" prompt in the parts list panel (You can also use keyboard shortcut of Enter/Return)

  • Added import options to the application menu

  • Added the options to the "Figures and Sheets" toolbar dropdown for figure numbering and moving figures

  • In the element info panel, added the ability to edit the part name when using a different label than the part name

  • Adjusted the spacing between the lead line and the reference number on the numbered lead line stencil to make it consistent with the outside numbering of an element

  • Addressed an issue where an image with the wrong file extension did not export in the figure

  • Addressed an issue where exported figures to SVG would cause any arrows to point the wrong direction

  • Addressed an issue where a user was not able to access the sheet sorter after importing a custom Rowan Template

  • Addressed an issue where generating a figure description would undue a part reordering

Other Fixes

  • Adjusted the ordering of the R-groups in the R-group manager to be alphanumeric

  • Addressed an issue where clearing all terms in the terms manager would represent former tags a "broken" rather than just removing the tag

  • Addressed an issue where a tagged term was deleted in "Suggestion" mode, then edited in the terms manager, it would update the term in the deletion and cause issues with the deletion annotation

Prosecution Module

Examiner Names and Examiner Statistics There is now an indication when the examiner name may not be correct and therefore will not generate an examiner statistic report. This also allows you to enter the correct examiner name from a list of filtered names based on your input.

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • Improved how amended claim language is handled when changing the prior claim text

  • Addressed an issue where "missing" was inserted when a claim dependency was removed

  • Addressed an issue where selecting only certain documents for exporting was ignored

RELEASE 3.9.2 (September 19, 2023)

This release contains additional changes to the Preparation module, continuing our effort to make the drawing tool even more powerful and easier to use. We've also made some tweaks in other areas intending to make functions easier to find and use. And we added a new workflow for amending claims only in the Prosecution module.

Preparation Module:

Drawing Toolbar Options — We’ve added all the formatting options to the drawing toolbar. This allows you to regain some screen real estate by closing the right element info panel yet still having access to all of the formatting options.

We’ve also reconfigured some of the toolbar options for importing and managing figures and sheets.

Drawing Element Info Panel Layout

We’ve reorganized some of the options to make it easier to find what you need.

Import Figures from a Patent Publication

Input a publication number and Rowan Patents will search for and retrieve the associated PDF. You can then select from the figures in that patent publication to import for reuse in your patent application.

Import Selected Figures from PDFs

In a previous release, we added the ability to import figures from PDFs. You can now select specific figures (pages) in that PDF for import.

New Claim Options

Beneath each claim, there are options to add a new claim for setting dependency on the independent claim, the previous dependent claim, or other dependency options, including multiple dependencies.

Spell Check Dictionary Selector

You can now select the language(s) for the spell-check dictionary. You can select multiple languages or you can disable the spellchecker completely.

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes Addressing:

  • Users were clicking on figures in the main application window expecting to open that figure in the drawing tool. So, we changed it. Now, clicking on a drawing will open the drawing tool instead of adding a comment (comments can be added by toggling the commenting option)

  • An issue in the drawing tool that would sometimes cause a disappearing text box

  • Claim transformations better supporting the "further comprising" transition

  • the behavior of merging figures to allow for overwriting specifically numbered figures

  • the figure number shown in the drawing toolbar and sidebar would not update when switching canvas figures

  • The support for merging comment replies from DOCX files

  • Certain DOCX files would not open when imported

  • A regression in the ability to open CDXML in Chemdraw

  • The ability to underline the part number stencil

Prosecution Module:

Claim Amending-only Workflow

You can now use the claim amending functionality in the response writer without having to supply an Office action -- e.g. for a preliminary amendment.

Edit Prior Claim Text and Status

If there are issues with the prior claim text and/or claim status that need to be corrected prior to amending, and those fixes were not done during the package generation, you can now edit the prior text from within the Response Writer. In most cases, this will not affect amendments you may have already made.

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes Addressing:

  • Certain cases where the examiner signed an Office action with a name that differed from the database, stats were not generated.

RELEASE 3.8.2 (August 17, 2023)

This release primarily contains some bug fixes and other general improvements.

Preparation Module:

  • Auto-tagging of parts when importing a DOCX file was improved

  • Aligning grouped elements in figures will now align the entire group (vs each individual element)

Bug fixes addressing the following:

  • A number-only stencil would sometimes show two numbers

  • Empty comments would have their cursor misaligned

  • Part number capitalization would not be right when tags were updated

  • Several issues when importing comments & tracked changes from DOCX files

  • An issue syncing .rp files correctly with Dropbox on Windows

  • An issue where occasionally a suggestion would be deleted if it contained a tag that was edited/deleted

  • Biovia chemical structures were being replaced by "MISSING OBJECT" when imported from a DOCX file

  • A visual issue on a popover on the Profanity portion of the Tools window

  • Visual issues in the merge dialog checkboxes

  • Styling issue on the Templates portion of the Tools window

Prosecution Module:

  • Allow for claim markup (strikethrough and underline) to apply to images in the claims (along with chemical structures and equations) both in the tool and in the export

  • For double patenting rejections, identify and fetch the art for cited patents and publications associated with rejections, and include that art in the package and Rejection Navigator

  • Allow special characters to be entered in the docket number field (the generated file name will replace some characters to not interfere with the operating system rules)

Bug fixes addressing the following:

  • An issue that would cause the Rejection Navigator to not be displayed if there was a large combination of rejections and claims

  • A regression that would not display underlined amendments in claim language on the "Add and Review Claims" portion of the package builder

  • An issue syncing .rpr files correctly with Dropbox on Windows

  • Biovia chemical structures were being replaced by "MISSING OBJECT" when imported from a DOCX file

RELEASE 3.7.3 (July 11, 2023)

It's been a little longer than usual between releases, but that's because this release includes a major update to how drawing parts are managed, giving you more flexibility and control in creating and numbering the elements that illustrate your inventions. It also contains other enhancements to the drawing tool, and the preparation module in general, as well as some updates to the prosecution module.

New Drawing Tool Parts Panel

Create and manage parts with a lot more flexibility and capabilities. Many existing part operations (e.g., deletion, sub-numbering, reordering) are now available in the new Parts panel. For more information, check out this support article.

  • Create a Parts List — you can now create parts separately from what’s on the canvas, manage those parts, and add them to the canvas.

  • More Flexible Numbering you now have many more options on how to number parts.

  • Autonumbering Mode — Number parts in increments of 1, 2 (default), 4, 5, and 10 with all the same renumbering automation, e.g. drag to reorder parts within a figure, numbers updated when figure number changes, etc.

  • Manual Numbering Mode — Parts take on any number and suffix you type for them while still maintaining the synchronization with any references to those parts in the specification.

  • Re-use Parts on Any Figure (replaces “linking” of parts with more flexibility) — Any part can be used in multiple figures, and all instances will be kept consistent with any edits you make in the Parts Panel. Drag parts from one figure list in the Parts Panel to any figure without change. E.g., part 202 can appear in FIG. 1 without becoming part 114.

  • Copy/Paste Parts — The default copy and paste behavior (Ctrl+C/Ctrl+V for PCs, Cmd-C/Cmd-V for Macs) will now paste copied stencils with identical part data, i.e., the same part numbers and names, replacing the previous "Paste and Link" functionality.

  • Paste with New Number — This action pastes copied stencils with new part numbers. (available in the Drawing menu or using the Ctrl+Shift+B/Cmd-Shift-B for Macs shortcut).

  • Re-Ordering Parts — All part reordering now takes place in the Parts Panel (this replaces the old numbering tab in the right panel). Now, you can multi-select parts and drag to re-order a group of parts. Also, parts can be dragged from one figure listing in the parts panel into another and will assume the numbering mode and attributes of the destination figure.

  • Multi-select Parts — You can multi-select parts in the parts list for: re-ordering a group of parts; converting part names to terms; setting parts to sub-numbered parts (e.g. 102a, 102b).

  • Change Element Part Association — You can select an element on the canvas and change its associate to a part via the Element Info Panel or on-canvas editing (below).

  • Part Panel Default Stencil — Select the stencil that is added to the canvas when dragging parts from the parts list to the canvas.

  • Automatic Identification of Parts — When opening or merging a Word (docx) file, Rowan Patents will automatically identify parts referenced in the specification and add those to the drawing parts list and sync those parts back to the references.

Other Drawing Tool Updates

  • On Canvas Editing of Part Data — Double-click an element to invoke on-canvas fields for entering or modifying part data and labeling associated with that stencil.

  • Optimize Screen Real Estate — The Element Info panel (right panel) is now collapsable to free up some screen real estate when needed.

  • Group Elements — There is now an option in the Element Info panel to group elements together on the canvas. For example, grouped elements can now be dragged around as if they were a single element.

  • Import PDF Files — You can import PDF files with one or more drawings (e.g. prior patent application figures).

  • Image Cropping — There is now an image-cropping function allowing you to remove unwanted aspects of an image (e.g. figure numbers when imported PDFs of previous drawings).

  • Editing an Element Shape — This is now invoked through a halo icon next to the element rather than double-clicking on the shape.

  • Drawing Toolbar Update — We have done some restructuring of the drawing toolbar, partly to make it more consistent with the other toolbars, but also to accommodate a change we plan to release soon. This change will add all of the element formatting options to the toolbar, reducing the need to have the right Element Info panel take up screen real estate.

Other Preparation Module Updates

  • Automated Terms/Definition Identification — When opening a Word (docx) file in Rowan Patents, terms with definitions will be automatically identified and added to the Terms Manager.

  • FASTA/FASTQ Import — Sequences can now be imported in these formats.

  • Bug Fixes and Other Improvements Addressing:

    • Switched Exported code font to be USPTO compliant for docx filings

    • The table content generator, “list” column types with “leading zero” numbering styling not having a defined prefix applied to the generated cell contents

    • Login failing when users accidentally added whitespace to their domain name

    • In the Sequence Manager, long titles cutting off the display of the qualifier molecule

    • The automatic “find and tag

    • terms” function creating terms with unnecessary capitalization

    • The stencil stamping preview displaying with mouse pointer does not update with style attributes unless stencil type is changed

Prosecution Module Updates

  • Status Indicators — You can now set the case and style for status indicators in the Response Writer.

  • Boilerplate Text Insert Management and Sharing — You and/or your organization can now centrally manage the boilerplate text insert options via an Excel spreadsheet.

  • Bug Fixes and Other Improvements Addressing:

    • Images/equations/chemical structures in the imported prior claim set were not being maintained when rolling over the claims into the response shell

    • Some equations not exporting correctly

    • Some claim references getting the wrong pluralization

    • Multiple dependent claim tags in the Response Writer were being treated as amendments. This converts such multiple dependent references to plain text (i.e., they are not tagged and automatically updated)

    • Contiguous canceled claims would not be presented as grouped (e.g. 2 - 5) in the prosecution shell export

    • Shortened WIPO references (zeroes removed) were not being identified

RELEASE 3.6.5 (May 2, 2023)

This release contains a smattering of new things, including some improved table formatting and content generations, a few items for chem/bio applications, and a new way to manage attorney signature block data in the prosecution module. This also contains several fixes and other improvements across the board.

PREPARATION

  • Multi-column sections—you can now format a section to handle content in multiple columns (view multi-column sections article)

  • Stencil stamping— expanding on the Rapid Number feature, now you can quickly populate a number of any of the stencils on the drawing canvas (view stencil stamping article)

  • Chem/Bio/Pharma

    • Protein sequences can be added without spaces, and you can toggle modes between with or without spaces

    • We've added a count of the number of amino acids/bases in a sequence

  • Multiple range-combo content generation— you can now provide values for the start and end of multiple ranges to generate a table or list of combinations of those ranges (view multiple range content generation article)

  • Bug fixes and other improvements — addressing the following:

    • an issue that would cause Visio exported lead lines to be missing arrowheads

    • an issue with tables that would crash the application if tables got very large

    • an issue that would paste in incorrect equations when a copied-and-pasted paragraph from Word contained more than one inline equation

PROSECUTION

  • Attorney signature block data management — we have added options on how to manage the attorney signature block data, including an option to have it centrally managed (view attorney signature block data article)

  • Bug fixes and other improvements — addressing the following:

    • an issue that would reset the scroll position on prosecution package-generated PDFs when working in two windows

    • an issue where available examiner data was not being reported

    • an issue that would cause the Similar Claim Clause Syncing to not report on the up-to-date number of matching clauses

    • an issue that would add unwanted paragraph numbers to a new Response Writer section

    • an issue where the prosecution tool would time out when trying to parse data from cases where Patent Center did not include a DOCX version of the most recent rejection

    • an issue with the Response Writer templates that would prevent new lines in a claim section from being added between claims

RELEASE 3.5.1 (March 21, 2023)

This is a minor update with a few bug fixes and UI tweaks.

PREPARATION

  • Bug Fixes — addressing the following issues:

    • Changes to the claim transformation templates were not affecting the newly generated claims.

    • A document (docx file) with very large tables would not open properly in Rowan Patents

PROSECUTION

  • Added menu items for accessing your profile and the ability to sign out directly from the prosecution module

RELEASE 3.5.0 (March 9, 2023)

This release contains a few improvements in the prosecution module, and bug fixes all around.

Prosecution

  • Non-Patent Literature (NPL) — NPL will now be included in the listings of cited art for your reference. NPL documents will not be included in the exported package. You will still have to use your own source for downloading NPL.

  • Restriction Requirements — When entering an application number, the system will now fetch Restriction Requirements if that is the most recent action from the Office.

  • Bug Fixes — addressing the following issues:

    • Canceled claims were included in the amended claim syncing options

    • Files that did not contain an application number would open to the landing page instead of the final package

Preparation

  • Bug Fixes — addressing the following issues:

    • Some drawing elements would snap to the grid when nearby elements were selected

    • Resizing a drawing element by grabbing and dragging would resize the opposing dimension as well

    • Resizing a drawing element by entering a value in the dimension fields would sometimes result in the shape being off by a pixel

    • Some tracked changes would save incorrectly and disable the ability to export a clean copy

RELEASE 3.4.2 (February 14, 2023)

How did it get to be February already? And yet, here's another release from the Rowan team. It spans improvements in both the areas of preparation and Office action responses.

Preparation

Section Reordering — You can now rearrange sections by clicking on the drag handle on the left. You can either drag sections or click on the handle to "pick up" sections and move the those sections to their new location.

Improved Word (docx) Import — If you already have draft application content in a Word document, we've improved how it handles placing the content within sections in Rowan Patents.

Tables — You can now insert tables starting with more than 10 rows.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

  • R-group numeric ordering in the left navigation has been improved

  • Addressed an issue with numbered list syncing across paragraphs

Prosecution/Office Action Responses

Import Amended Claims — You can now import a Word (docx) file containing amended claims directly into the Response Writer.

Cited Art References — You can now format (e.g. bold, italics) references to cited art in your response.

Response-Specific Auto-Text Options — You can now type shortcuts that resolve to standard phrases you might use in an Office action response. e.g. "apprs" = "applicant respectfully submits". Note: you can edit these options or add your own to fit your needs. Tools -> Templates -> Auto Text

Bug Fixes:

  • Addressed an issue in which the rejection navigator was not removing stricken language from the prior claim set

  • Addressed an issue in which the rejection navigator would show an error in certain conditions

  • Addressed an issue where claim numbers were not being imported in some conditions

  • Addressed an issue where canceled claims were not rolled over correctly

RELEASE 3.3.1 (January 12, 2023)

Happy New Year!

We just released our first of many planned updates for 2023.

Numbered Lists

This release adds the ability to sync a numbered list to a previous numbered list.

For example:

This update also includes the ability to set the starting unit for the list.

R-Group Description Order (Chem/Bio/Pharma apps)

This release adds the ability to re-order descriptions for an R-group variable in the R-group manager.

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Drawings:

    • Addresses an issue where certain number stencils could not be changed to other stencils

    • Addresses an issue where changing to another stencil sometimes caused an error

  • Prosecution Module

    • Addresses an issue where a changed claim status would not sync to the second open window of the response writer

    • Addresses an issue where some bibliographic data was not being added to the document

    • Addresses an issue where uploading an Office action for a private matter may generate an error

RELEASE 3.2.2 (December 29, 2022)

Before we close out this year, we have one more release with a couple of goodies and other improvements and fixes.

Preparation Module

  • Improves performance when the document includes dozens of comments

  • Adds the ability to change a drawing element's stencil after it has been placed on the drawing canvas

  • Addresses an issue preventing certain docx files with certain chemical object formats from loading

  • Adjusts the copy/paste experience so that copied selections that include suggested deletions will not put that deleted content on the clipboard

Prosecution Module

  • Adjusts the copy/paste of claim amendments to remove deleted (strikethrough) text when inserting as a reference into the arguments section of the response

  • Adds the ability to include issue section boilerplate both before and after the issue listings

  • Improves the organization of cited art listing on the Office action review page. This also now includes "other possible art" that the system has identified but does not have a matching matter in the public databases

  • Improves the performance of claim support validation

  • Addresses an issue where claim markup that had one spanning an entire paragraph would not export correctly

  • Addresses an issue where some dynamic fields were not being filled out when generating the response for the Response writer

We're looking forward to bringing you even more in 2023. Happy New Year!

RELEASE 3.1.1 (December 1, 2022)

This release contains an often-requested feature in the drawing tool as well as several improvements to the new Prosecution module.

Drawing Tool

  • Lock Position

    You can now lock the position of elements on the drawing tool canvas. This will allow you to move the objects you want to move and not the ones you don't. In the Element Description panel, check the Lock Position option to lock the selected element(s).

  • Flowchart Generation -- Highlight Claim Language

    To help you keep track of the claim language you have used in a flowchart when using the new flowchart generation feature, the claim text used in a flowchart step or description will be highlighted. Note: this highlights the same text in your claims section to inform you when you are modifying claim language contained in a flowchart and description.

Bug Fixes

This release addresses the following:

  • Images and compounds in a table cell were not being exported to the DOCX (Word) file correctly

  • Copying text from the claim sidebar in the drawing tool that contained highlights or tags would not paste correctly.

Prosecution Module

  • Added the ability to "refresh" proofreading and claim support data in the right tab without having to close and re-open the pane

  • Added highlighting to selected cited art references when reviewing the office action in the package generation steps

  • Added a help menu

  • Adjusted the placement of some claim-specific options in the app menu

  • Addresses an issue that reported inconsistent SSP dates for office actions imported via PDF vs DOCX

  • Addressed an issue where adjusting claim references did not result in amendments to the claim reference change

  • Remove text that wrongly indicated we could add prosecution claims from a Rowan Patents (.rp) file

RELEASE 3.0 (November 1, 2022)

This release includes a major upgrade to our Rowan Patents drafting solution with the introduction of a new prosecution module. It also includes a couple of drawing tool improvements and officially renames the application to Rowan Patents.

Introducing the New Rowan Patents Prosecution Module

We’ve incorporated a new, attorney-focused, Office action response interface within the desktop solution you already rely on to draft your applications, along with an enhanced version of our existing prosecution functionality.

The new prosecution module includes:

  • Package builder - Generate all the files available from our web-based Prosecution and export them to .zip, OR save them as an .rpr file and immediately preview each PDF and begin drafting your response, right in Rowan Patents

  • Response writer - Amend your claims with automated markup styling and synched amendment to parallel claim elements. Draft your supporting remarks in easy-to-navigate response sections. Once your response is drafted, export it to a customizable Word template for filing.

  • Rejection navigator - Access an interactive side-by-side view of issues, claims, examiner remarks and cited art

  • Summary - Review your application’s bibliographic data, predictive examination analytics, and USPTO file history

Check out these help articles to learn more about how to use this new module. And, as always, please contact us with any questions or suggestions. We would like to hear how this new module is working for you.

Drawing Tool Improvements

  • View thumbnails of your figure when you hover over the figure numbers in the new figure navigation at the bottom of the drawing tool

  • Now, when you delete a figure, you will be presented with the previous figure instead of the first figure

Naming

With this release, we are officially changing the name of the application to Rowan Patents. This will happen automatically when you next launch or re-launch the desktop application. For Mac users, after updating, you will want to search for Rowan Patents using Spotlight search or in your Application folder.

RELEASE 2.40.6 (October 21, 2022)

This release contains improvements to the recently released new flowchart and description generation feature. It also contains a few bug fixes.

Flowchart Generation

In order to give you more control over the flowchart description generation, you can now instrument a flowchart step with multiple descriptions. You can reorder those descriptions and you can set descriptions to be "action" language.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

  • Addresses an issue with the new flowchart generation where some text in the description fields was not being included in the automated figure description generation

  • Addresses an issue with the new flowchart generation in which cutting any text in the description field removed all of the text

  • Improves flowchart component selector by filtering out other flowchart elements

  • Addresses an issue where certain imported SVG files were missing arrowheads upon export

  • Now opens the stencil panel in drawing tool by default

RELEASE 2.40.5 (October 13, 2022)

This release contains an addition to the drawing tool's new sidebar (part of our last release) and an added figure navigation. It also contains a couple of fixes to the new flowchart/description generation feature. There's also more behind-the-scenes enhancements on a new integrated prosecution module. If you would like to be an early beta tester of that, please contact Tracy Campbell.

Drawing Tool Figure Navigation

In addition to the figure navigation available in the left sidebar, this release includes a new way to navigate between figures. At the bottom of the drawing tool, next to the sheet sorter tab, we've added figure numbers. Click any of those to navigate to that figure.

Drawing Tool Terms Sidebar

The drawing tool sidebar we introduced in the last release now includes the list of tagged terms in that document. You can drag a term onto canvas to add it as a numbered part. Hold shift while dragging to add it as a numbered part using a square stencil.

Bug Fixes

  • Addresses an issue where the automatically-generated flowchart description would not properly capitalize subsequent sentences if more than one sentence was entered into the description field

  • Addresses an issue where some verbs in the automatically-generated flowchart description were not transformed correctly

RELEASE 2.40.3 (September 28, 2022)

This release contains some new features and improvements for everyone, something nice for our Mac M1/M2 users, and a major update that most of you won't see yet (but if you would like to be an early beta tester, contact Tracy Campbell and ask about our new integrated prosecution module)

Flowchart Generation

In addition to the fully automatic flowchart and description generation based on a claim, we've added new ways for you to instrument your flowchart to give you more control over the generation of the flowchart and a more complete description.

We've added a reference to your claim language within a new drawing tool sidebar.

Claims in the New Drawing Tool Sidebar

You can select functional claim language and automatically add it as a flowchart step, creating a new block in the figure.

You can also instrument that step with additional descriptive language from the claims, and assign the component (a numbered part) that performs that step.

Drawing Tool Sidebar

To make room for referencing claim language in the drawing tool, we've added a new left sidebar to the drawing tool. Along with the claim language, you can access the figure navigation and stencils.

We have a lot of plans to make the drawing tool even more powerful via this sidebar... so watch this space.

Mac OS Native Support for Apple Silicon (M1/M2 Macs)

The Mac version of the Rowan Patents desktop application now runs natively on M-series Macs. For those of you who have such a Mac, you'll notice a drastic improvement in performance. Launching the software and opening new windows is especially snappy. Enjoy!

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

  • Change "Review" to "Suggesting" for turning on the ability to suggest and track changes within the specification.

  • Address an issue where page numbering in an exported document would reset if the orientation (portrait/landscape) switched between sections

  • Address an issue where duplicating or transforming claims doesn't scroll to the new claims

  • Address an issue where the performance of find and tag terms was slow in certain conditions

  • Address an issue when copying and pasting molecular drawings between files, the drawings were converted to images rather than preserving the data of the molecular drawing

RELEASE 2.39.1 (August 11, 2022)

In this release, we have improved the user experience for exporting files, addressed some issues, and made other improvements.

New Export Menu and Dialogue

We have replaced the multiple export menu options with one menu item which brings up a dialogue. In that dialogue, you can select the items you want for export all at once rather than each individually.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

  • Opening or merging a Word (DOCX) file now will include any png or jpg images that were present in the Word file.

  • Addressed an issue that was causing find-and-tag claim terms in certain documents to error and fail to tag lots of terms

  • Addressed an issue where merging or opening Word documents in Rowan Patents would not render certain special characters

  • Addressed an issue where tables with irregular column widths imported from Word would not always have their widths preserved

  • Added an error message when a user tries to merge the unsupported .doc file (instead of a .docx file)

  • Addressed an issue where a user couldn't set the dashed/dotted border style for drawing elements in older .tp files (before we had a thickness setting)

  • Addressed an issue where changing "Compounds" to "Examples" in the compound manager would not use the correct column header in the inserted table

RELEASE 2.38.2 (July 14, 2022)

This release contains several improvements and fixes, especially related to features for Life Sciences applications.

General Improvements/Fixes

  • In the drawing tool, remove the pre-filled "item" part name when adding numbering stencils. (Note: this is based on feedback that "item" gets in the way of entering the part name you really want)

  • Fixed an issue where certain comments couldn't be deleted

  • Fixed an issue where certain specification sections were merged into the wrong location

Life Sciences Improvements/Fixes

  • In the Compound Manager, you can now select between using the prefix "Compound" or "Example" when inserting numbered compounds/examples

  • Molecular drawings should now be more consistent in size when importing and exporting

  • Performance when pasting molecular drawings from the integrated Chemdraw tool should be significantly improved

  • Fixed a windowing issue with the integrated Chemdraw tool

RELEASE 2.37.2 (JUNE 23, 2022)

This release contains some highly requested functionality around exporting to Word, some UI improvements, bug fixes, and support for the upcoming requirement for ST.26 sequence listings.

Export Track Changes, Comments, Highlights

You now have the option to export a Word (DOCX) file containing any tracked changes, comments, and/or highlights you added to the Rowan Patents (.tp) file during drafting.

When the software detects tracked changes, comments, and/or highlights, it will provide an additional option to export with those. You will still have the option to export a "clean" copy for filing. You can also choose to export simultaneously both a "clean" file and one with the tracked changes .

Table Column Resizing

Starting in this release, you can drag the lines in a table to resize the column width or the overall table width.

Chem/Bio/Pharma Items

  • ST.26 Sequence Listing Support

This release includes support for the new ST.26 sequence listing requirement (as of July 1, 2022).

NOTE: As with our ST.25 support, Rowan Patents does not generate a file-ready sequence listing. Instead, the file is for input into the WIPO sequence tool that will then generate a fileable sequence listing.

  • Identify proteins vs nucleotides even when spaces are removed

  • Convert Biovia mol data to skc format

  • Fix issue where pasting chem data would trigger an error

  • Fix issue preventing certain chem images from being pasted from Word

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Remove the the marker text "(deleted)" to merged tagged terms that are not in the target document's term manager

  • Improve saving of files in specific situations (e.g. slow access to network drives) that could be interrupted and cause issues with the file

  • Fix issue where Visio files could be saved with no extension

  • Fix issue where centered text wasn’t centered on export

  • Tweak handling of deleted claims referenced by a multi-dependent claim tag

RELEASE 2.35.1 (May 12, 2022)

This release contains a few improvements, some bug fixes, and a new Chem/Bio/Pharma feature*

Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Other improvements and bug fixes

    • Adds drag and drop for reordering of claims

    • Improves recognition of sections when opening a Word document as a Rowan file

    • Improves predictability of movement of a second specification window when editing in a first specification window

    • Fixes an issue where generating a flowchart overwrites the detail description of FIG 1 if there were no elements on FIG 1 initially

    • Fixes an issue where certain SVG files failed to import into the drawing tool

Chem/Bio/Pharma only

Compound Management

*This and other Chem/Bio/Pharma features are available upon request only.

  • This adds a new tab to the tools window where you can manage compounds

  • You can copy/paste content from an excel spreadsheet that contains:

    • An internal reference number

    • The systematic name

    • The chemical structure

    • The weight

  • You can reorder the compounds while keeping the internal reference number connected to the reordered compound number

  • The compound insert sidebar can be used to insert the compound number, the name, or the structure itself.

  • From the sidebar, you can also generate a table that contains all of the compounds listed in the compound manager

RELEASE 2.34.2 (April 8, 2022)

This release contains a couple of new features, some bug fixes, and a handful of updates to improve the Chem/Bio interface.

General Improvements

  • Flexible section formatting features are now in place.

    • You now have the ability to add, remove, and edit the headings of sections in a document.

    • You can also make sections start with page breaks, and swap a section's layout between portrait and landscape mode

  • WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) formatting with respect to margins and tables.

    • Your specification margins will match more closely with the final output from an export to MS Word.

    • Table formatting is also improved including margin handling, row/column sizing, and more consistent layout in an export to MS Word.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

  • Fix a bug where setting the current figure to A with a higher-numbered grouped figure on the same sheet would cause the figure numbering to be incorrect

  • Fix a bug that would prevent the find and tag algorithm from working when a multi-word term is present at the end of a claim line

  • Clarify the wording in the acronyms validation modal (“Undefined Acronyms”)

Chem/Bio only

  • Your formatting is better preserved (bold/underline/etc.) when converting protein sequences from three-to-one-letter formats and vice-versa

  • Improved Chemical structure handling

    • You now have the option to include R-groups when importing .mol and .cdx data types.

    • Opening .mol data in BIOVIA on double-click is possible.

    • The software handles BIOVIA plugins not being installed on your system in a more robust fashion.

    • The software now checks for installs of the appropriate chemistry tool for linking pasted-in objects whenever you paste chemistry data as images.

RELEASE 2.33.1 (March 15, 2022)

This release contains a few new features and some improvements to the user interface.

More granular left navigation

  • You now have the option to view and navigate to headings within your document instead of only the standard sections.

  • And, it now includes direct navigation to specific brief figure descriptions.

Claims in-context reordering and other options

You can now select the claims in the body of the document (rather than the side navigation panel) for re-ordering.

  • Just select a claim or claims and click on the move icon in the left margin.

  • This "picks up" those claims that you can then drop elsewhere in the claims for reordering.

  • All claim numbers and references are automatically updated just as before.

Clicking the option menu in the right exposes many of the options available for that claim or claims. e.g. generate flowchart, duplicate.

Parts list sidebar

You can now reference your drawing parts via the parts list sidebar. You can also use this to insert the entire parts list (synced for any updates), or any individual part reference.

Bug fixes and other improvements

  • Improves importing (from Word) and copy and pasting tables into the specification

  • Improves the right sidebar (with Parts, Terms, Sequences, and R-Groups) so more information about each sidebar item is visible

  • Addresses an issue where the autocomplete list would suggest duplicates if a term's plural and singular form were identical

  • Addresses an issue where list indentation was not right when converting indented claims to a list

  • Addresses an issue that would mis-number grouped parts on documents with figures with more than 100 parts

  • Clarifies language in the Local Validations for count of acronym issues.

Chem/Bio only

  • If your application contains chemical structures, you will have the option to export those along with the Word (docx) file. The chemical structures in the Word file are linked to the structures in the chemical files.

  • Clarifies language in the message when converting protein and nucleotide sequences between one and three letters

-

RELEASE 2.32.2 (February 10, 2022)

Lists in Claims

Claims can now include ordered and unordered lists. By default, unordered claim lists have hyphen headers, and ordered claim lists have lowercase letters wrapped in parentheses. All ordered lists (claims and otherwise) can now have their headings edited by the user. The options are numbers, numbers with a leading zero, lowercase letters, uppercase letters, lowercase roman numerals, and uppercase roman numerals.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements to Address the Following...

  • A performance regression while finding and tagging in a text field, that was particularly nasty when generating flowcharts from claims

  • An issue when merging a .tp file that contains any multi-dependent claims would cause an error, leaving the merge incomplete and the file in a semi-corrupted state.

  • A term’s definition (or R-Group description or a full sequence) would not insert correctly and not sync correctly when inserted into a table cell

  • A regression in the last release that prevented docx files from being opened in the tool

  • An issue that prevented documents with certain kinds of corrupted data about formatting tracked changes from being exported

  • An issue that would prevent removal of highlighting from being shown as a tracked change

  • An issue preventing copy and pasting equations from Word on Windows from being recognized as editable equations

  • An issue preventing copy and pasting equations from Word with a language set to other than US English

  • A typo in the message prompting users to report a docx file that failed to open

  • An issue where word documents with chemical structures in claims were not importing those chemical structures with the rest of the content

  • A fix to allow copy-linking to work in the drawing tool with image stencils

RELEASE 2.31.2 (January 19, 2022)

This is a quick little release to fix one issue introduced in yesterday's release.

It addresses an issue in which the autocomplete dropdown would sometimes present the wrong options after editing a part name or term (or r-group or sequence nickname).

RELEASE 2.31.1 (January 18, 2022)

This release has a couple of new features, and a bunch of bug fixes and other improvements.

Part number references in claims

You can now tag part numbers in claims by either typing the number or entering the name of the part and selecting the part number.

Drawings

We added a way to adjust the line weight of the stencils.

Bug fixes and other improvements address

  • When you have two document windows open for the same file, changing content in one window would cause the other window's scroll position to jump

  • Undo/Redo in the app menu were not always working

  • Updating the UX (and performance) of the image toolbar for specification images

  • Issue with table alignment when tables were copied/pasted from Word

  • Tables exported with widely different table cell widths when pasted in from Word

  • Generating summary of claims when a claim replacement is empty caused an error

  • Deletion no longer deletes the wrong claim when the left nav's claim delete icon is clicked

  • Images in the specification with SVGs set to inline to disappear and not show in the editor

  • Comment on a track-changes-suggested-deletion would make the file un-exportable

  • Tagged part numbers beginning with "11" would be prefaced with "a" instead of with "an"

  • Inserted glossary turns several inserted definitions into a list format when an inserted definition ended with a list

  • Orthogonal links were not maintaining their orthogonality when their end points were not fixed to the center of a drawing element

  • Chem/Bio: structures not importing when merging Word files

  • Chem/Bio: sometimes structures would not be being saved

  • Chem/Bio: issue with the selection when a new structure is loaded in the ChemDraw tool

RELEASE 2.30.1 (December 9, 2021)

Open Word (DOCX) files for content reuse

  • You can now open a DOCX file. This opens just the contents included in the Word document rather than merging the contents into a default template with existing headers and boilerplate.

  • From the landing window, or from the File menu, select “Open File” and choose the Word document you want to open.

Reviewed Word (DOCX) merge improvement

  • When merging a reviewed Word file with comments and track changes, you can now download a report in Word of the comments/suggestions that did not merge from a reviewed Word document

  • Check out this article for more information on merging reviewed Word documents

Other improvements and bug fixes

  • Improved the layout of the right sidebar for Terms

  • Fixed the occasionally paragraph numbers being out of order in the specification window (not in the export)

  • Fixed an issue where some style templates would erroneously cause page numbers to be omitted in the docx export

  • Disabled the claim reference drop-down for claim tags that weren’t actually dependency references

  • Disabled the claim reference drop-down when in review mode

  • Fixed an issue where generated summaries of multiply-dependent claims would include some claim numbers

RELEASE 2.29.4 (November 30, 2021)

This is a bug fix for an issue introduced in the prior release. It addresses an issue where the sheet numbers are not completely visible in the PDF export.

RELEASE 2.29.3 (November 22, 2021)

This is a bug fix for an issue introduced in the prior release. It addresses some issues specific to exporting certain SVG drawing elements to PDFs.

RELEASE 2.29.2 (November 11, 2021)

Performance Improvements

This should significantly improve performance in two situations:

  • When the file contains several figures and figure parts, lag in typing and switching windows should be significantly improved.

  • When single sections (e.g. the Detailed Description Introduction) has an abundance of content, this should reduce/eliminate the typing lag in that section

Specification Window

  • Highlight Text -- this allows formatting of text with one of four highlight colors, for example to review content or mark it for future reference. (NOTE: text highlight formatting is removed when exporting to Word to comply with patent office guidelines)

  • Table formatting improvements -- e.g. added column width and text alignment settings

  • Alignment/Justification -- set text, images, and other specification objects to align left, right, or center

Chem/Bio

This release continues our efforts in adding functionality specifically designed for writing Chem/Bio/Pharma applications. In this release, we added:

  • Capabilities related to chemical structures, especially those created in ChemDraw

  • Recognize and improve editing of nucleotide sequences

  • Set range combinations to an increment less than one (1).

If you or your colleagues are interesting in learning more, and possibly beta-testing some of these features, please contact Tracy Campbell at tcampbell@rowantels.com

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Various improvements to Visio export

  • Fixes an issue where (Windows only) users would have words erroneously flagged as misspelled.

  • Addresses an issue where certain imported SVG images would inherit properties of other imported SVG images on the same canvas

  • Fixes an issue where creating a tag on text that shares a boundary with a comment would make the comment expand to the rest of the editor


RELEASE 2.28.2 (October 14, 2021)

We are excited to announce the addition of a couple often-requested features...

Visio Export (BETA)

You can now export figures into a VSDX file that can be opened and edited in Visio.

But why is it a “Beta”, you ask? Visio and VSDX files are a very complex mess of code. While we believe we can accurately convert a large majority of the shapes and labels and connector types, we have a feeling that there will be some conversion issues that we haven’t discovered yet. We’re releasing this as a beta feature with the hopes that you’ll send us any you find. Thanks in advance.

Multiple Dependent Claims and Claim Tree Tool

Manage your multiple dependencies with a dependency editing function available as you type your claims. And view and edit all your dependences at a glance in the new Claim Tree tool.

For more on using this new feature, check out our latest help article on Multiple Dependent Claims.

Document (Claims/Spec) Window

  • Import or Copy/Paste equations from a Word file. These will import as “live” equations (not just images) that can be edited in the built-in equation editor.

Bug Fixes and Other Improvements

  • Addressed a rare timing issue that caused issues with saving a TP file

  • Made it so the “Delete Claim” menu item worked again

  • Removed an errant period from the Claim-to-Summary generation

Chem/Bio

We continue to add and refine functionality specifically designed for writing Chem/Bio/Pharma applications. For example, in this release, we added:

  • Support for importing sequences data from a Patentin txt file

  • Ability to convert between three-character sequence IDs and one-character sequence IDs

  • Ability to create of subsequences from and inside sequences via a menu option

  • Support for formatting of sub-sequences

  • Support for pasting Chemdraw elements from Microsoft Word into the specification fields

If you or your colleagues are interesting in learning more, and possibly beta-testing some of these features, please contact Tracy Campbell at tcampbell@rowantels.com

RELEASE 2.27.3 (September 1, 2021)

This is a single bug fix release that addresses an issue introduced in the previous release where the presence of a capitalized claim tag could cause the application to freeze.

RELEASE 2.27.2 (August 26, 2021)

Document (Claims/Spec) Window

  • Ability to adjust the size of images

  • Ability to add multiple images in a row (along with text)

Bug fixes address the following issues:

  • The drawing preview in the document window would sometimes display incorrect text wrapping

  • Saving to a network drive would sometimes cause issues with the file

RELEASE 2.26.0 (July 16, 2021)

Auto-text Numeric Variable

It is now possible to add a numeric {#} variable in the Auto-Text templates.

For example, you can create a shortcut “cl{#}” for the phrase “claim {#}”. When you type “cl5”, it will resolve to “claim 5”, or “Claim 5” if you typed “Cl5”.

Or you can create a shortcut such as “ises{#}” tied to the phrase “in some embodiments, SEQ ID NO: {#}” if you’re working in the area of Chem/Bio (more on Chem/Bio optimizations below).

Keyboard Shortcuts

We’ve added and changed a few keyboard shortcuts.

Action

Windows

Mac

Subscript

Control =

Command =

Superscript

Control (Shift) +

Command (Shift) +

Zoom In (entire window)

Alt +

Option (Shift) +

Zoom Out (entire window)

Alt -

Option -

Autocomplete and Tagging Improvements

We changed the tagging-as-you-type experience to make it easier to tag short terms and terms nested inside other terms

And, we changed the tagging-as-you-type experience so that after text you typed is converted to a tag, undoing will just undo the tag conversion leaving the typed text as-is, and not undo any of your previous keystrokes (unless/until you undo again)

Flagging Terms

We have added the ability to “flag” terms. This allows for filtering the Consistency Review for terms you want to make sure are in the claims and specification. This can also be information when passing the file along to a colleague or other users. The metadata is only in the Rowan drafting file and is not contained in any export.

Chem/Bio

We also have been doing a lot of work on optimizing the software for writing Chem/Bio patent applications. Some of this work is included in this release, but not generally exposed to all users. If you or your colleagues are interesting in learning more, and possibly beta-testing some of these features, please contact Tracy Campbell at tcampbell@rowantels.com

Bug Fix

  • Inserting a definition/description twice should no longer cause both instances to highlight pink (unsynced text)

  • Definitions that included a tag containing subscript/superscript should no longer be marked as unsynced immediately upon insertion

RELEASE 2.25.1 (June 30, 2021)

Specification Document Window

New Side-Bar with Terms and Definitions

We've added a new side-bar in the document window. You can use it as a quick reference to your terms and definitions. You can also use it to insert a definition -- just click on the arrow next to the term. Watch this (or that) space, as we have plans for more capabilities in that sidebar (and, we're open to suggestions).

Bug Fixes

  • Removes the possibility of opening two versions of the same file by quickly double-clicking twice on the same file.

  • Addresses an issue where merged definitions became un-synced from the terms manager

RELEASE 2.24.0 (June 10, 2021)

Software Updates

Several of you have asked to have more control over when your version of the software gets updated. Starting with the next release, you will be able to cancel the download/update process and launch the application in your current version.

Bug Fixes

  • Some SVG files used as a background image in a drawing no longer turn invisible when that drawing was not selected

  • Images from older tp file will now copy and paste into a new file

RELEASE 2.23.4 (May 11, 2021)

Bug Fix

  • Fixed an issue when a drawing sheet was dragged from one file to another, imported images would not transfer.

RELEASE 2.23.3 (May 7, 2021)

Performance

  • Improved performance on files that contain many and/or big images. This significantly changes how images are handled within the document, which should greatly improve general performance when working in files that contain images

    • NOTE : Files created previous to this release that contain images will go through a migration process. It will happen automatically as you work with the file. Until it happens, you will not realize the performance improvements. If you want to immediately trigger the migration:

      • make any edit anywhere in the file (e.g. enter a space in a text field)

      • wait several seconds (5-10)

      • save the file

      • close the file

      • re-open the file

  • Improved performance when:

    • editing part names with a parts list inserted into the spec

    • editing definitions when the definition is inserted into the spec

    • exporting the specification to word,

    • using the advanced search-and-replace feature

Bug Fixes

  • Fix an issue where under some circumstances, after dragging a term onto a drawing, the resulting element would not respond to clicks and other UI interactions

  • Fix an issue that was preventing an application with certain kinds of custom style templates from being exported to Word

RELEASE 2.22.2 (April 14, 2021)

  • Improved performance—upgraded core editor which includes general performance optimizations

  • Improved drawing tool link connection—the target/anchor point of the link will be anchored where you drop the arrowhead, rather than in the center of the element

  • SVG validation upon import—confirms when SVG can be properly exported, and warns if not

  • Fixes an issue preventing using the path editor on the figure part (the x00 element)

  • Fixes an issue preventing the merging of terms whose definitions has too much styling, e.g. too many subscripts/superscripts

  • Fixes an issue with the undo operation when in review mode (track changes)

RELEASE 2.21.1 (February 4, 2021)

Performance

  • Improved typing performance

  • Less "lag" in being able to start typing after switching windows

Drawings

  • Imported Visio files now imports text into the label field as lower case (better for part references in the specification), and tries to replicate the case of the text on the figure

  • Added greek and other symbols to the PDF export

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issue where the cursor would jump to the top of a section when in a numbered/bulleted list

  • Fixed issue where the cursor would jump to the top of a section when in a review mode

  • Fixed issue where certain characters in the figure label were not the same height when exported to PDF and viewed in certain PDF viewers

  • Fixed issue where certain conditions caused a section to freeze when inserting all definitions

RELEASE 2.20.4 (January 14, 2021)

Drawings

  • Add subscript and superscript in parts names and labels

  • Lock elements and links to horizontal or vertical access (shift-drag)

  • Import Visio files and preserve figure and part sub-numbering

  • Use same auto-text shortcut for both capital and lower case

Specification Document Window

  • Reference parts as a group – e.g. Devices 102, 104, 106. i.e, a part number can be used separate from its part name

Terms

  • Add subscript and superscript to terms

User Interface Improvements

  • The tagging autocomplete suggestion ordering now prioritizes beginning-of-taggable-text instead of percentage of matched text (e.g. 'com' should now suggest “computing service” before “cloud computing”

  • Enabling 'link to part' automatically opens the search dropdown to save a click

  • Part linking and grouping controls for links/connectors are now back in the tool

  • Flowchart rectangle in stencil picker now looks like a flowchart rectangle

  • Old references to 'drawings' have been replaced with 'figures'

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed an issue where importing comments/suggestions from a reviewed Word document would not include all comments

  • Fixed an issue where generating the description of a flowchart would occasionally fail

  • Addressed some cases where the autocomplete menu shows duplicate entries

  • Fix visual alignment of plural form in edit term dialog

  • Fix a couple of drawing tool oddities where dropping a stencil right near the edge of the canvas would produce odd results

  • Fix a few tooltips-related UI glitches, where tooltips were too large, or were being partially hidden by other UI elements

  • Fix UI glitch where scrolling all the way to the right on a zoomed in canvas would sometimes show a gray bar instead of the white background extending all the way to the edge of the canvas

  • Fix the capitalization logic to only capitalize a-z and not other character such as greek letters commonly used in chemical formulas

  • Fix issue preventing re-syncing of an out-of-sync definition that occurs at the beginning of a paragraph

  • Fix an issue where a change-tracked addition of an equation would cause the editor containing it to fail to load when opening the file or a new document window

  • Fix an issue where certain Windows security configurations would complain of an out-of-date certificate used to sign our code

  • Fix a UI glitch where dragging a term in the terms manager would sometimes look like you were dragging two terms

RELEASE 2.19.2 (November 3, 2020)

Performance

  • Improvements to term operations (add/delete/edit)

  • Optimized some drawing tool interactions

  • Smaller improvements to typing performance

Drawings

  • Overhauled UNDO operations to be more predictable and consistent.

  • Fit-to-Text horizontal and vertical controls (more info)

  • Flexible display labels for each linked part

  • Visio import now includes a loading UI while processing

Claims/Specification Document Window

  • Automatically Generate a Summary from Claims (More info)

  • Merge Comments/Suggested Edits from a Reviewed Word File (More info)

  • Reference and Keep Synced Claim Numbers in Specification

  • Improved auto-generation of flowchart description

Other Improvements and Fixes

  • The cursor no longer resets to the beginning of the editor after converting text to a term.

  • The Windows menu bar no longer disappears/reappears causing the window content to jump vertically where when switching between different application windows.

  • Dragging a link stencil into a figure no longer results in the link being numbered by default.

  • Rapid numbering number elements no longer have a box drawn around them.

  • A term with a double-space or a part name ending with a space is no longer suggested for autocompletion anytime you type a space in the specification.

  • Elaborating tagged text in a claim will automatically tag that same text in the newly generated claim.

  • Improved the page loading and operation-in-progress loading UI to be less jarring

RELEASE 2.18.2 (September 21, 2020)

Performance

  • Further optimizes typing performance, reducing lag.

  • Reduces cross-window sync times to improve overall performance.

  • Further improves performance when adding/removing numbered paragraphs.

Drawings

  • Optimize your screen real estate to focus on the drawing canvas with a new collapsable left panel and new scrolling behavior for the right panel.

  • Automatically renumber parts based on the reference order in the specification.

  • Convert straight lines into curves when editing stencils.

Claims/Specification Document Window

  • Use shortcut text to automatically insert common phrases.

  • Plural versions of terms are added automatically (but still editable).

  • Includes comments and suggestions when merging a tp file.

Tools

  • New template for adding and editing auto-complete phrases using shortcuts.

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Fixes a regression where part numbers were automatically added to imported background images.

  • Fixes an issue where flowchart element names were not being added automatically when using arrows to add steps.

  • Improves Visio Import (beta) to handle a wider variety of Visio content.

  • Fixes an issue where Visio Import (beta) would cause the window not responding dialog to pop up.

  • Improves visual fidelity of equations in word output by inserting them as SVG instead of PNGs.

  • Fixes an issue where sometimes when returning to the drawing window after doing work in another window, a "Cannot read property 'x' of null" error message would appear.


RELEASE 2.17.1 (August 31, 2020)

Performance

  • Overall optimization of the software which means you should see a reduced memory footprint, shorter load times when opening a file, faster switching between windows, and other general areas of performance improvements.

Drawings

  • Stencil editor capabilities.

  • Actor order operations in automated markdown figure generation.

  • Bigger sheet and figure number font.

  • Visio import (beta) improvements to handle more variations of Visio content.

  • Element rotation user experience improvements.

Document Window (Claims/Specification)

  • Insert/copy-paste multiple claims.

  • Figure reference thumbnails added when hovering over Figure number.

  • Abstract word count now exclude the heading (won't count "Abstract").

  • Equation insertion improvements: insert inline or standalone equations; better vertical alignment; equation no longer can overflow page on export, fix issue for cursor when equation is at end of paragraph.

  • Fixed issue where tables could have incorrect widths in the export.

Tools

  • Several visual/UI improvements to the profanity tool.


RELEASE 2.16.2 (August 17, 2020)

Drawings

Terms

  • Merge terms within a file to become one term (normalization).

  • Merge individual term and definition from one file to another.

Bug Fixes

  • Fixed issue where copying and pasting a part would result in an unexpected number, e.g. if you have 102, 104, 106 and you copy and paste 102, the new/pasted part would become 104 instead of 108.

  • Fixed issue when using an overbrace in an equation.

  • Fixed issue where adding an equation to an empty definition field wouldn't work.

  • Fixed bug where drag-selecting inside an editor in the drawing numbering panel would sometime drag the part instead of performing the selection operation.


RELEASE 2.15.0 (July 16, 2020)

Claims/Specification

  • Create and edit mathematical equations and chemical formulas using the integrated MathType plugin.

  • Reverted exported (.docx) claim numbering format to plain text.

Drawings

  • Connect stencils using top/bottom right angle connectors.

  • Number a part using a numbered lead line with an arrow.

UI Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • You can now close dialogues using the ESC key.

  • Added a "processing spinner" when exporting a specification.

  • Removed blue background when hovering over parts in the numbering panel.


RELEASE 2.14.2 (June 30, 2020)

Claims/Specification

  • Customize the method to apparatus/CRM claim generations by defining claim templates.

  • Insert a synced parts list.

  • Keep track of number of words in the Abstract with an persistent abstract word counter.

Drawings

  • Align and/or distribute shapes relative to the drawing sheet.

  • Customize the sub-numbering of the figure reference number .

UX improvements and bug fixes

  • Unified tools window now includes terms, profanity, and consistency checks all in one place.

  • In the document window, more toolbar items move into the overflow dropdown menus when the window is very narrow.

  • In the document window, comments shift left and right according to whether any landscape sheets are visible on the screen.

  • When adding a new figure to the current sheet by converting the existing figure the new figure label appears in the middle of the sheet instead of the default location, which will often be right on top of the existing figure label.

  • Removed confusing styling from numbering panel that suggested flowchart elements could be reordered when they actually can't.

  • Fix issue where copying/pasting a term tag would flatten it to plain text unless you also included a leading space in the selection.

  • Fix issue where autocomplete menu in claim fields would not include plural forms of terms.

  • Prevent applying styles (bold, underline, etc.) to text inside tags, since we don't actually support styling tagged text even though it looked like we did.


RELEASE 2.13.4 (June 9, 2020)

Claims/Specification

  • Customize the styling and formatting of the Word (.docx) document -- e.g. margins, fonts, paragraph and line spacings, claim indentations, headers and footers. If you are interested or want more information, email Tracy Campbell: tcampbell@rowantels.com.

  • Insert special symbols such as mathematical, currency, and others directly into the specification.

Drawings

  • Create sub-numbered figure groups (Fig 1A, 1B, 1C) and the drafting tool helps ensure that figure numbering and grouping follow the PTO's guidelines. For more information, see the article on Sub-numbered Figure Groups.

  • Add more than one figure per sheet and let the drafting tool keep track of proper figure ordering as well as part numbering for each figure. For more information, see the article on Multiple Figures per Sheet and Part Numbering.

  • Create drawings that meet PCT guidelines with the following adjustments to the tool: exported PDF sheets all have a portrait orientation; increased the lower case height to not be "less than 0.32 cm" in drawings; moved the file reference to the left-hand corner within 1.5 cm from the top of the exported drawings; added the ability to place more than one figure on a sheet to meet the requirement that different figures be arranged on a sheet without wasting space; adjusted lines and arrows to be 100% black.

UI Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • The document window tool is now more compact and responsive so you can narrow the window and still see all the options.

  • Related to the above, the default size of the document window default size is narrower.

  • When auto-completing a tag at the beginning of a sentence you will now be offered a capitalized option as well as a lowercase option.

  • When you click on a drawing element, the focus is removed from any focused input fields so hotkeys like left/right operate on the drawing element rather than the input field cursor.

  • The file recovery dialog now only displays the filename of the recovered file instead of the full path.

  • Fix an issue where pasting content into a drawing element's name or label field would sometimes freeze the window.

  • Fixed an issue where auto-generated flowchart descriptions occasionally showed as HTML.


RELEASE 2.12.3 (April 10, 2020)

Claims/Specification

  • Added support for searching and replacing spaces, including double-spaces as well as non-breaking spaces.

  • Collapse the left navigation panel to regain screen real estate.

  • Delete one or more claims directly from the navigation panel.

  • Changed default "Brief Summary" field label to just "Summary".

Bug Fix

  • Fixed an issue where an auto-generated flowchart's brief description contained extra, meaningless characters .


RELEASE 2.12.2 (March 30, 2020)

Rebranding

  • Updated names and branding to our new company name. For more information on that, visit https://rowantels.com/.

Tools

Improved the consistency checks with the following:

  • if a term is referenced in a part and that part is referenced in the spec, it now adds that to the term use count in the spec column.

  • Fixed an issue where a part number without a name wasn't added to the Part Name list.

  • Parts should now be ordered properly by part number.

  • Added the ability to click on a term or a part and find its uses in the specification and figures.

Other Fixes and Improvements

  • Fixed an issue in the drawings where stencil height or width would get reset to 1 when selecting multiple stencils.

  • Fixed an issue in which comments would appear to become uneditable.

  • Fixed an issue in the definitions input field where the cursor would bounce to the head of the field.

  • Selecting "Edit Term and Definition" from context menu no places the cursor into the proper place in the definition input field.


RELEASE 2.12.1 (March 20, 2020)

Claims/Specification

  • Search and replace text in the specification.

Tools

  • Check usage of terms, parts and definitions usage, and get warnings when one of those has not been used.

  • Customize the definition template wording and see the entire text of the definition that will be inserted into the specification.

  • Automatically identify and import terms that are contained in any Word (.docx) file, such as the full text from another specification or an Invention Disclosure Form (IDF).

Drawings

  • View and rearrange all of the drawing sheets via a new sheet sorter.

  • Reduced the space of the drawing navigation in the drawing editor .

  • Expanded the canvas display to show the entire area inside the margins, and the figure/sheet numbers are displayed (as read-only text) where they will be printed upon export.

  • Stencils can now be set to a transparent background rather than opaque white.

  • Lead lines and links can be set to varying thicknesses and lead line styles can be set to dashed or dotted.

Comments Auto-Save

Comments now "auto-save" when you move focus away from the comment bubble. This helps avoid accidentally losing unsaved comments.

Merge Performance

Significant performance optimizations make merging .tp files go much faster.

Bug Fixes

  • Tabbing through the name/label field in the numbering tab should no longer focus fields in the wrong order after reordering.

  • Moving elements around with the keyboard arrows should work properly while zoomed now.

  • Old .tp files should now consistently show link labels in the right font.

  • Button in image upload dialog should now work more consistently (dragging and dropping a file worked, but clicking to browse for one didn't).


RELEASE 2.11.0-2.11.1 (February 10, 2020)

Tools

Bug Fixes and Improvements

  • Next/previous comment buttons now should navigate to drawing comments as well as text comments.

  • Preserve inline definitions across copy/cut/paste.

  • Include articles when generating flowcharts from method claims.

  • Improved controls in document window toolbar for comments/track changes -- split button.

  • Fix Inline definitions that would sometimes break the definition syncing relationship without the standard UI indication.

  • Fix deactivating and reactivating a drawing comment to update the icon color to indicate it was reactivated.

  • Fix SVG images imported into the drawing tool that would sometimes drop visual features like arrowheads.

  • Don't add empty text boxes to Visio exported drawings (they would often cause the content to invisibly overflow the page).

  • Fix dragging an image from a browser into an editor that would paste in the image, but it would not display when offline.

  • Fix dragging a drawing list item to reorder that would also drag a bunch of visual content above the drawing list item.

  • Eliminate intermittent occurrences of "this.removeScrollListener is not a function" error.

  • Eliminate intermittent EPERM error dialogs on Windows.

  • Eliminate intermittent (harmless but unsettling) error dialog when quitting the application on MacOS.


RELEASE 2.10.2 (January 6, 2020)

System

  • Auto-recovery automatically open all previously open files, including those that had unsaved changes. You then have the option to save the file with the unsaved changes.

  • Improved performance when switching windows.

  • Improved performance when typing in part name.

UI Improvements and Bug Fixes

  • Changed toolbar menus to open on click instead of hover, to be more intuitive and consistent with other apps such as Word or Google Docs.

  • When exporting to Word/PDF, if there is no docket number, use the the title when generating filenames.

  • When pasting content from MS Office, comments are now filtered out.

  • Added a progress bar to RoboReview processing window.

  • Adjusted the delete claims window for consistency with similar operations.

  • Fixed an issue in which the figure label in the brief description would show 'NaN' instead of its part number, and would incorrectly look like it was linked to another element.

  • Number elements with lead lines can now be moved around using the keyboard arrow keys.

  • Drawings and/or windows while a drawing was zoomed to something other than 100% no longer messes up the canvas, causing the zoom selector and/or actual zoom level of the canvas to be incorrect.

  • When generating a flowchart, the brief description now uses a tag for the figure label element rather than the plain text.

  • Merging older tp files no longer miscounts the number of terms/definitions to be merged.

  • Visio export now handles number element lead lines or the figure label arrowhead correctly.

  • Quitting with multiple files open with unsaved changes and choosing to discard changes now actually quits the application.

  • Dragging multiple drawing elements no longer sometimes selects some of the text outside the canvas.


RELEASE 2.9.2 (December 11, 2019)

Claims/Specification

  • Insert tables in claims or anywhere in the specification.

  • Added support for A4 page size.

  • Merge MS Word Content into a TP file, including an improved merge user interface.

  • Improved typing performance/responsiveness.

  • Clicking on the navigation of the specification quickly to the section rather than scroll (which sometimes felt slow).

Drawings

  • Added support for A4 page size.

  • Improved SVG export to import into Visio.

Terms

  • Added ability to nest one term inside another.

  • User-driven tag capitalization.

  • Improved performance of adding a new term.

Bug fixes:

  • On Windows PCs, the drawing window no longer adjusts vertically when giving it focus. This sometimes caused inadvertent movement of stencils on the canvas.

  • Plural form of a part name should no longer get accidentally deleted on occasion.

  • Next/previous comment/suggestion buttons should now work consistently.

  • Merging a .tp file with drawings should no longer result in connector labels changing to "UNDEFINED".

  • When generating a flowchart from a method claim, the generated brief description should now consistently include a figure reference.

  • Removed false error message when dragging an image onto a drawing canvas.

  • CTRL/CMD-A on the drawing page now selects only elements on the canvas, rather than all the text (including the user interface items) on the page.

  • Error message when starting application with no network connection now makes more sense.


RELEASE 2.8.5 (November 15, 2019)

Claims/Specification

  • Automatically transform/auto-correct text - e.g. auto-capitalization, symbols.

  • Added ability to insert single synced definition from Terms Manager.

  • When inserting all definitions, disabled automated entry into certain fields where it really doesn't make sense, like claims or abstract.

  • Added new code block paragraph styling.

  • Improved the navigation bar (left panel), making the interactions more consistent and made some additional minor improvements.

Drawings

  • Manually set a plural version (or any alternative version) of a part name by using the options menu above the part number.

  • Convert a part name to a term.

  • Add Left/Right orthogonal links.

  • Evenly distribute drawing elements relative to each other.

  • Reorganized first stencil group, splitting out the "special stencils" (number element, text-only box, etc.) from the common shapes (square, circle, etc.).

  • Scaled down images imported into drawings -- When adding importing a shape/stencil to the drawing canvas, we scaled it down to be the default size of most of our stencils (and you can scale it back up if you want).

Review

Added support for more advanced comments/suggestions controls -- delete/discard all, accept all, prev/next navigation controls.

Bug Fixes

  • Dragging off the canvas while resizing a drawing element no longer makes the shape grow in the other direction.

  • Duplicating a drawing should no longer take up to 10-20 seconds.

  • Pasting a mix of numbered and un-numbered paragraph from Word now will actually paste something.


RELEASE 2.8.3 (October 31, 2019)

More WYSIWYG-style Editing and Customization Capability

The main document window now displays all of the content that will be contained in the Word (.docx) export, and it is all editable. This allows for a higher level of customization.

Section Headings

Sections of the document will be pre-populated with default section headings (the ones previously auto-generated only when exporting to Word).

These headings are all editable in the document window.

This also allows you to remove entire sections, including their headings. Completely empty fields will be omitted from the Word (.docx) output.

Header formatting can be set using the text styling dropdown in the toolbar.

Add Sections

You can add your own sections (e.g. federal funding, field of invention) by inserting new headers into the beginning of the Background section or at the end of the Cross Reference field, or anywhere else you want. For instance, you can replace the Cross Reference field entirely by editing that header. (note: the left side navigation will remain as "Cross Reference", but the export will only display what is showing in the text fields).

Customize Boilerplate

Text that used to be inserted into the Word (.docx) file at that time of export is now visible and editable in the document window. For example, there is now a section heading and preamble field for the claims and brief descriptions where you can edit the heading and change or add boilerplate text.

Once you have all your preferred heading and boilerplate language, you can save that .tp file for the starting point on your next draft application.

Brief Descriptions

Brief description figure tags are now included at the beginning of the Brief Descriptions fields. You have full flexibility to edit the brief description exactly as you want, including referencing multiple figures in one brief description field.

Paragraph Numbers

Paragraph numbers are now displayed in the document window and can be turned off for any selected paragraphs by clicking the paragraph numbering option in the toolbar.

Claim Formatting and Insertions

All of the formatting and insertion options available in other sections of the specification are now available in claims. e.g. subscript/superscript, image and equation insertion.

Track Changes

In addition to the commenting feature added in the previous release, there is now an option to track changes while you, or other reviewers make edits.

The control in the toolbar switches between drafting and review mode.

In review mode, any edits made will be tracked, highlighting additions and deletions. Various structural changes (such as reordering claims, deleting drawings, etc.) are disabled in review mode.

In drafting mode, all editing capabilities are enabled, and any tracked changes will remain visible and can be accepted/rejected.

RoboReview

You can now run a RoboReview on your .tp file directly from Authoring with the results added as comments and tracked changes into the document window.

You can separately view the predictive analytics and the full report in a web browser (optimized for Chrome).

To run a RoboReview, select "Launch RoboReview" from the Review menu.

Inline Definitions

Related to our push for a more WYSIWYG-style editing experience, now when you insert a definition (or do an insert-all definitions), instead of only seeing a definition placeholder tag that is only expanded on export, it will insert the full text of the definition.

Changes to definitions in the terms manager will auto-sync to anywhere the definition was inserted.

You can also edit the definition inline. You will have options to sync the editing definition back to the Terms Manager, or re-sync the definition from the Terms Manager.

Manual Glossary Insertion

Using the context menu or application menu you can insert a glossary anywhere you want in the specification (replacing the old checkbox and auto-generation on export to Word).

It will insert definitions for all defined terms, with the same syncing described above.

Minor Changes and Bug Fixes

  • Prevent autocomplete popup from being mostly off-screen by showing it above, instead of below, the typed text when needed.

  • Removed the floating help icon on the lower right and replaced it with a menu item in the help menu that has access to support articles and sending messages customer support.

  • Added tooltips to various toolbar buttons.

  • When merging a .tp file into another tp file, Authoring now finds and auto-tags any occurrences of newly-merged terms.

  • The insert image option in the application menu now works.

  • Dragging a term from the term manager to the drawing canvas to create a part reference now works again.

  • Large images no longer overflow page width when exporting to word.

  • Tagged terms inside quotes at the beginning of a sentence capitalize properly.


RELEASE 2.7.3 (August 28, 2019)

Single-window document view

This is a big UX change to unify all of the contents of the draft patent application.

You can also open multiple instances of the main document window that sync with each other so you can view/work on any different part of the document side by side -- even two different detailed descriptions, or two claims that would have required scrolling back and forth to see the content of each.


The navigation on the left quickly moves you between areas. And, we've included other cross-referencing links within of the sections so you can quickly scroll to the description of a figure, or open the figure in a new window next to the description.

Also, context menus now contain a lot more options.


Other new features/enhancements:

  • Text-range comments -- the document window now allows you to add comments that are attached to a specific range of text, as opposed to only an entire paragraph. Select the text and use the "add comment" option in the toolbar or menus.

  • Support comments on drawings -- in the main document window, you can click on the drawings to add comment threads anchored at specific locations in the drawing.

  • Add orthogonal routing option to drawing connectors -- when set, the connector will only have horizontal and vertical line segments and right angle vertices.

  • Added circle (outline & filled) link endpoint options to drawing tool.

This release also contains several bug fixes:

  • Term tags were being auto-capitalized when they appeared at the beginning of a definition (after the term and boilerplate).

  • Terms would not auto-capitalize inside a definition.

  • SVG images inserted in the specification wouldn't export (removed SVG import into specification -- use .jpg or .png).

  • Drawings export didn't work when drawing contained certain imported SVG images.

  • Merging definitions into a tp file, term tags inside those definitions would become broken.

  • Leading/trailing spaces were included in tagged terms.

  • Multi-word terms would not be tagged when generating an elaborated claim.

  • Handling tp file permissions (EPERM error).

  • Word export paragraph numbering issue where editing the document after export would throw a compatibility warning and corrupt the paragraph numbers.

  • Repeatedly pasting a drawing element would paste once onto the canvas, then start pasting odd text into the pasted element's label field instead of pasting additional copies of the element onto the canvas.


RELEASE 2.6.4 (July 11, 2019)

In this release, we've updated the underlying text editor. This paves the way for many new features and enhancements, some of which are in this release, and some that we'll be releasing over the next couple of months.

Here are the updates in this release:

Spell-check and Find
These are incorporated directly into Specification and Claims Windows rather having to perform those operations in the Review Window.

Part Names/Labels
We have revised (hopefully clarified) the drawing part name and labeling user interface. By default, the part name is the label. You can optionally change or remove the label that adorns the drawing.

Rapid Numbering/Labeling
This comes in handy when working with mechanical drawings. You can import the mechanical drawing as an image and then rapidly number and label the drawing.

Specification/Claims Export
Exporting to MS Word now happens locally on your system rather than it being a cloud-based service. The content never leaves your the file on your system, or wherever you store it.

Tagged Term Editing Behavior
Instead of being an uneditable block that behaves funny when you cursor across it or delete it, tagged terms are now just text just like all the non-tag text, except it has the gray highlight background. You can cursor through tags just like any word, but as soon as you make any edits to the text inside the tag, it will "break" the tag, The tagged term (or drawing part reference) will be unaffected, the gray highlight will disappear, and your edit (added character, deleted character) will take effect in the now-plain-untagged text.

Image Insertion
We changed the interface slightly. Clicking the add image button in the toolbar will immediately open a filesystem browser dialog. If you want to drag and drop an image into an editor field, don't click the toolbar button, just drag the image directly onto the editor field, and it will put it wherever your cursor last was in that editor.

Inline Definition Boilerplate
We removed the "in this context" part. It will now read: "[Term]" refers to [definition].

Help
We've added a help menu from which you can access articles on how to use the Authoring platform.

Bug fixes:

  • Word export numbering would continue to increment across separate numbered lists.

  • Glossary was not alphabetized properly.

  • Tags weren't properly capitalizing if the preceding sentence ended with a word contained quotes or other punctuation.

  • Images contained in definitions would not be present in the review window (only their captions would be).


RELEASE 2.5.4 (May 9, 2019)

This release includes a few bug fixes and "fit and finish" items.

Drawings

When using the number stencil with the lead line, the end of the lead line is now fixed and the number moves, rather than the other way around.

Specification

The Insert inline definition in the menu bar now works properly -- inserting the definition tag after the selected term rather than what is selected in the terms panel.

Exporting a specification no longer fails when "include glossary" is enabled.


RELEASE 2.5.3

This release includes a new automation feature—automatically insert inline definitions— and a few other tidbits and bug fixes. See below for more details.

Automated Inline Definitions

Prior to this version, you've had the option to automatically prepend a list of terms and definitions (the glossary) to the detailed description. Some of you have told us you prefer to have the definitions inline, after the first use of the term in the specification. Now, you can now automatically insert definitions in the specification, either on an individual term, or on the first use of all terms.

As part of this, we moved the "include Glossary" checkbox to the Detailed description section.

SVG Stencils

You can now drag SVG images directly from a website onto the drawing canvas rather than download them and then drag the file from your local directory.

Other enhancements

  • The figure & page number are now in drawings in the Review window.

  • We added tooltips to help ease the learning curve.

Bug fixes

  • Grid size & guides settings weren't persisting.

  • Terms would be incorrectly capitalized in review window.


RELEASE 2.5.2

Drawing element number position control

This new control in the Element Description panel can be used to choose between having an inside number, or various outside number positions, and can act on multiple selected drawing elements at once.

The number position is now a sticky setting applied to future elements dropped onto the canvas.

The grid and guides settings are now persistent when you switch drawings and when you switch .tp files, including when you quit and re-launch the application.

Bug Fixes

  • Sometimes (often after deleting a drawing), the selection box would appear on a click instead of click-and-drag.

  • Rotated elements were not properly restricted when dragging near the edge of the canvas.

  • Rotated elements weren't always properly aligned when using the alignment tools.

  • Changed figure references in the specification to FIG. X to match the brief descriptions in the Word (.docx) output.

  • Paragraph numbers in the review window were sometimes out of sync with the word export, e.g. sometimes caused by bulleted lists getting paragraph numbers.

  • Old .tp files containing a few specific stencils would not open properly.

  • Trying to delete a drawing other than the "current" one would instead delete the "current" one.

  • Removed extra whitespace to the right of drawing canvas when zoomed way out.

  • Updated login screen UI to provide more clarity/better guidance around entering the organization domain.


RELEASE 2.5.1

We did a lot of work to make the drawing tool more powerful and easier for creating patent figures. We also made some changes to the Specification and Review windows.

New Drawing Features:

Alignment control

  • Snap-to guides and group alignment tools.

  • Grid size control.

  • Zoom on drawing canvas.

  • Lock aspect ratio when resizing stencils.

  • Full-size preview of stencils while dragging onto the canvas.

Add images and stencils

  • Drag-and-drop image files directly onto the canvas to import.

  • Import .SVG files into the drawing tool. With this, you can convert any SVG file into a TurboPatent stencil and use outside numbering, connector links, etc. This opens up usage of the large libraries of SVG files that can be found on the Internet -- e.g. for electrical stencils, and various devices.

Linking/line options and control

  • Link/line stencils — drop on the canvas to create a disconnected link or line.

  • Link connection control — red dot in the stencil is the adjustable anchor position for the link.

  • “Connect Link To” setting -- make links connect to the interior of elements, rather than the boundary.

Outside number and lead line positioning

  • Drag-and-drop outside number position and lead line angle — replaces the funny slider for changing outside number positioning.

  • New number element stencil with a lead line automatically attached — drag the stencil to where you want the lead line to point, then drag the number around the lead line into the position you want.

  • Adjust length of outside number/number stencil lead lines.

New Specification/Review Window Features:

  • Find-in-page functionality in the Review window.

  • Show paragraph numbers in the Review window.

  • A number of minor improvements to the terms panel.

  • Terms panel added to the Specification window — select a term to scroll to its first use and highlight all uses.

  • Add a little spacing to make it easier to visually distinguish paragraphs in the spec window.

Other Improvements and Bug Fixes:

  • Users who experienced an “Unable to read ‘selector’ undefined” error shouldn't experience that anymore.

  • Stencils no longer auto-size bigger than needed text in a drawing element just to wrap on a space preceding a tag.

  • Added a drawing description boilerplate paragraph in review window so paragraph numbers match Word output.

  • Link routing should now be sticky.

  • When dragging multiple elements, they now all stop moving when one of them reaches the edge of the canvas, rather than them getting squished together.

  • When using keyboard arrow keys to move multiple elements, the selection boxes no longer “get left behind”.

  • Those few drawings that had trouble exporting to PDF now export just fine.

  • Improved claims import to tolerate stray status indicators.

  • The exported Word document filename defaults to the docket number (if entered).

  • Terms are now capitalized when exporting the glossary (and in the Review window).


RELEASE 2.2.0

Compare Files

In the review window, you can compare your tp file to a previously saved snapshot for the purposes of comparison, tracking changes, review, etc.

Tagging improvements:

  • You can now tag terms inside parentheses. e.g. if you type '(client' or '(102' it would suggest 'client 102' (previously the presence of the open paren would prevent it from suggesting anything).

  • The auto-complete menu now shows the items that best match first. e.g. if you type "neural netw" and it matched both "neural network" and "network", "neural network" will be presented first.

  • Fixes an issue where typing the full text of a term or drawing object without explicitly accepting the auto-complete suggestion, and then hitting space or entering punctuation, the cursor would end up before the space/punctuation instead of after.

Other

  • Added "Launch RoboReview" item to the file menu -- this will open a tab in your browser that will run a RoboReview on the specification you drafted.

  • Fixes an issue in the drawing tool where sticky settings were being applied to number stencils, incorrectly giving them a border that couldn't easily be removed.

  • And other performance/bug fixes.


RELEASES 2.1.0-2.1.3 (Oct/Nov 2018)

Sticky settings in drawings

Properties for drawing elements/connectors such as stroke style, arrowheads, etc., the drawing tool will now remember those settings, and the next element/connector you create will start with them set the same way.

Spell check

The Review window (available in the View menu) now contains a spell checker. Misspelled words are noted with a red squiggly line. Right/ctrl click the misspelled word to get suggestions based on your local dictionary.

If you want a part in a figure to be the same as the part in another figure, you can link those two parts. Now, you can use a shortcut -- Ctrl-v pastes without linking, and ctrl-shift-b pastes and links.

Other Improvements and Fixes:

  • Tweaked the wording of the glossary entries in the word output.

  • Removed the glossary and description headings from the word output.

  • Add an "include glossary" checkbox to the specification page that can be used to include or exclude the glossary when exporting to word.

  • Fix the recent files list on the landing page to show most recent on top, and to not show duplicates.


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