For our Prosecution users who use templates set up with dynamic fields allowing the selection of a responding attorney within Rowan Patents, our latest release may improve your workflow.

Now, rather than each user needing to manually set up and maintain lists of responding attorneys, everyone in your organization will have the ability to share and point to a spreadsheet to access attorney data.

If your template is not configured with fields supporting attorney selection within Rowan Patents Prosecution, you will not see the dialogs in this article and do not need to make any changes to your workflow.

Note also that any attorney information you have previously entered will be maintained. No action is needed unless/until you need to update your data.

This article covers the following topics to help you get ready for and take advantage of this change:

Pointing to and selecting an attorney from a spreadsheet
What that spreadsheet looks like
How to opt out for now
Questions and feedback

Pointing to and selecting an attorney from a spreadsheet

Open the Prosecution Module and begin building your package.
When you select a template with a configurable attorney signature block, a Responding Attorney List File dialog will appear.
Click browse and select your attorney data spreadsheet

OR

Enter a URL in the Source File field for a web-hosted spreadsheet

OR

If your company or firm has a cloud-hosted default spreadsheet, click the Reset to default link to access that file.

Contact your Rowan Patents account manager to learn more about default spreadsheet cloud hosting.
Click Save.
A dialog allowing attorney selection will now be presented. Click the dropdown icon and select the desired attorney from the dropdown menu provided.
Additional controls are provided allowing you to open your source file for editing or select a different source file. If you use either of these controls, click the Refresh button and make your new selection from the updated dropdown.
Click Continue to proceed with package generation.
A response package will be generated incorporating data for the selected attorney.
An additional selection dialog is provided in the Response Writer, in case attorney data needs to be reselected or modified in some way.

Note that updates made in the Response Writer will be reflected in the exported response, but not the shell provided in an exported package .zip file. To correct that file, a new package needs to be generated.

Note also that dynamic field data in the body of your response template will be generated as plain text in the Response Writer. This text may need to be updated manually to reflect changes made using these controls.
Exported responses will incorporate data for the selected attorney in the response signature block, based on how the template is configured.

What that spreadsheet looks like

The info button in the Responding Attorney List File dialog provides the following guidance:

"The data must be in the first sheet in the file, and the columns should contain attorney information, including name, registration number, organization name, address, address 2, city, state, postal code, country, phone, fax, and email."

This guidance also includes a link to a spreadsheet you can use to enter your data in the correct format. This template spreadsheet empty-attorney-data.xlsx is also provided here for your convenience.

A completed spreadsheet may resemble this example:

Note that fields may be left blank if they are not needed, such as "Address 2" and "Fax" above, but all columns must be present.

How to Opt Out for Now

After you've selected your template, the Responding Attorney List File dialog will appear.
Click the Skip button.
Proceed to generate your package.

Note that the responding attorney is no longer selected before the package is generated.
Select your desired responding attorney using the dropdown now provided after the Conclusion section in the Response Writer.

Questions and Feedback

If you have any questions, issues, or feedback on this new functionality, please don't hesitate to contact your Rowan Patents account manager. or to reach out through Rowan Help, under the Help menu.

empty-attorney-data.xlsx