User manual for Partridge

Partridge

Introduction
Who should use this software
Disclaimer
System requirements
Installation
Configuration
Adding records to the database
Performing an update
Checking for new files in PAIR
Sorting records in the database
The view menu
Right-clicking on patent records
Privacy information
Troubleshooting
The importance of backups
Credits

Introduction

Congratulations on your selection of the Partridge status monitoring program (version 4.2.03) for US patent applications. We have found that the Partridge software provides a very convenient way to monitor such patent applications, and we hope you like it.

Who should use this software

This software is intended for use by any patent law firm or business that is handling at least one pending US patent application. This software is only helpful for those who are able to use the USPTO's PAIR system, however. The PAIR web site says:

The PAIR system is designed to provide data regarding the status of an application or a patent to applicants to a specific targeted audience (i.e., patent applicants and/or their designated representatives).

Thus, neither PAIR nor Partridge is of any help to, say, the inventor or corporate client who would like to obtain information about an application being handled by an attorney or agent whose address (customer number) is associated with the application for purposes of Patent Office correspondence. Nor is PAIR or Partridge of any use to a patent agent or patent firm outside the US that would like to monitor a US application being handled by a US patent firm.

To use the software, you must obtain a USPTO customer number (if your firm doesn't have one already), arrange to have your customer number associated with your pending US patent applications (if your firm has not already done so), obtain a PAIR cryptographic certificate from the USPTO, and install the USPTO/Direct encryption software on a computer of yours that is connected to the Internet. (These steps are detailed at http://www.oppedahl.com/pair/.) You should perform all of these steps, and become proficient in running the USPTO/Direct software and proficient in using the PAIR web site, and only after accomplishing all of these things should you install and run Partridge.

After you have installed and tested the Partridge software, you can use it, together with the PAIR system, to obtain a list of all of the patents and patent applications that are associated with your customer number. You can store this list in a database in the Partridge system, and can manually add records to the database. You can manually run the software to check the status of the patents and patent applications. When the software runs, it compares the status of each application and patent (reported currently by the Patent Office web site at http//pair.uspto.gov/ ) with the status that was reported the previous time the software was run. The new status is displayed on the main page of the software, and you can easily review the application status on the screen. If any status changes are detected, the software uses a green icon on the screen to show the change, and sends an email message to a user-selected email address to report the changes. The contents of the email message are appended to a log file. In addition, the Partridge software creates or updates a web page which lists all of the patent applications and patents that are being monitored, and for each one it shows the status which was obtained from the Patent Office web site.

Disclaimer

It is important for you to realize that the program is being provided to you free of charge on an "as is" basis with the hope that you will find it helpful for the monitoring of US patents and patent applications. While we have tried to make the program convenient and reliable, we cannot promise that the program will be perfectly reliable. For example, we have designed the Partridge software based on the format of information on the web site of the U.S. Patent Office as of the time during which the software was being designed. If the U.S. Patent Office changes the format of its web pages (which it has done quite often in recent years) this may lead to incorrect or incomplete results when using Partridge. As another example, the Partridge software relies upon the USPTO/Direct encryption software, and on a continuous connection to the Internet and, through the Internet, to the web site of the Patent Office. If your connection to the Internet were disrupted, or if there were some interruption in connectivity within the Internet making it impossible to reach the web site of the Patent Office, then this software will not be able to perform its intended function. Likewise, if the USPTO/Direct software were to fail to function properly, you would not be able to use Partridge (or PAIR, for that matter). This Partridge software is designed to generate email messages to annunciate particular events such as the change of status of a pending application, and there are occurrences (such as email server crashes) which could lead to loss of email messages. Finally, we have not tested the Partridge software on every possible combination of computer hardware and operating system software, and it might turn out that there is some combination that crashes the Partridge software or causes it to malfunction. For all these reasons, we urge you not to rely solely upon the Partridge software but to continue to rely upon proven methods of monitoring patent and patent application status.

Where the status of a particular patent or patent application is important to you, or when you wish to track your own patents and patent applications to avoid missing a due date, you should use the same docketing systems that you would have used in the absence of this Partridge software.

It is our hope that you will find it possible and helpful to use the Partridge software for many months or years to come, and that none of the unhappy events described above will ever happen to you.

System requirements

Partridge version 2.1.08 requires the following:

a computer running Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, Windows 2000, Windows XP.
the computer must have Microsoft Internet Explorer 4.0 (or a newer version of Microsoft Internet Explorer) installed
the computer must have a connection to the Internet that is active at the time the Partridge software is being used. This is preferably a permanent connection to the Internet, but can optionally be a dialup connection
the computer must have the USPTO/Direct software installed and tested.

It is possible the Partridge version 2.1.08 software will run on other versions of Windows, but we have not tested it on other versions of Windows.

If the software proves to be popular, we hope to offer it on other operating systems such as Linux.

Installation

Before installing the software, make backups of the important information on your computer. That way, if the Partridge installation procedure were to crash your computer, you still have your important data stored elsewhere.

Probably the most challenging aspect of using Partridge is that you must previously have done all the things that are required to get PAIR to work. As described at http://www.oppedahl.com/pair/, you must obtain a customer number, associate it with all of your files, obtain a PAIR cryptographic certificate, and and install and test the USPTO/Direct software. Each of these steps is fairly complicated and the whole process can take months if you have not done any of it before. But the rewards are great, not only because it enables you to use Partridge but also for many other reasons described at http://www.oppedahl.com/pair/.

Assuming that the system requirements set forth above are satisfied, we expect that installation of Partridge will be fairly straightforward. First, download the latest version of the software (if you have not done so already) from the web site of Oppedahl & Olson LLP at http://www.oppedahl.com/partridge, making careful note of the directory to which the file was downloaded. (The software may take twenty minutes or more to load with a 28K modem.) Second, run the downloaded file to install the software. We suggest that the software be installed to the default directory which is c:\programfiles\partridge . The installer will require you to restart your computer, after which the installer will finish. Third, run the Partridge program by clicking on the Partridge icon on your desktop. Then proceed to "configuration", discussed below.

Configuration

When Partridge is run for the first time, it requires that you provide several items of information which are stored in configuration files and which are used when Partridge is run again. Here is the initial configuration screen, shown with sample values in the fields (do not use these sample values!). The fields to be completed are as follows:

Organization name. This field should be completed with the name of your organization. The name of your organization is included in the status update email messages and also appears in the HTML web page that shows the current status of the monitored patent applications and patents. You can change this later if you wish, so don't worry too much about the exact text of this field.
SMTP server. This field must be completed with the domain name address of an SMTP server which can be used through your Internet connection for sending email. This SMTP server is used to send notifications to let people know that the status of monitored patent applications or patents has changed. After you have entered this and the other required fields, you will be able to press an "email test" button which tests to see that you have completed this field with a proper SMTP server address.
One way to determine how to complete this field is to check the configuration of your email client (such as Eudora or Netscape Communicator or Microsoft Outlook Express) to see what SMTP server it is using. You should also be able to find out your SMTP server by contacting your system administrator. This field, unlike the "organization name" field, must be completed correctly for the software to work properly.
Return address. The Partridge software must provide a "return address" when it sends out its email messages, so that the recipient of such email addresses will know the source of the messages and will be able to reply to them. Many SMTP servers will refuse to handle an email address if it lacks a proper return address. In addition, if an email message turns out to be undeliverable for some reason, the SMTP server will want to notify the sender that the message was undeliverable. This requires that you provide an email address (typically, your own email address) in the "return address" field.
E-Mail notification addresses. The Partridge software needs to know where the status update email messages are to be sent. In a simple case, this may be your email address, and the result may be that you enter your email address in both the "recipient" and "return address" fields. Alternatively, you may wish to list several people in your organization (or elsewhere) to receive the notifications.
Shortcut folder. This determines where your "shortcut" (an icon that you can click on to run Partridge) is located. We suggest accepting the default value.
Application directory. This determines where the Partridge application file and related subdirectories are located. We suggest accepting the default value.
Logging directory. The Partridge software maintains a log file which contains the information provided by email status reports. This field permits you to determine where the log file will be stored. We suggest using the default directory. The log file can grow to 100K bytes in size, so you should leave at least that much free space on your hard drive.
HTML report directory. The Partridge software creates (or revises) an HTML web page and an XML file showing the current status of all patent applications and patents being monitored. This field permits you to select where the HTML and XML report files will be stored. You may wish to set this to a directory located on a web server, in which case others will be able to view the page with their web browsers. If you do this, you should probably select a web server that is "firewalled" from the Internet because you would not want members of the public to learn about your pending patent applications.

Creating the database

Next, you will want to create a database containing records identifying your patents and patent applications. While you could enter them manually, it is worthwhile to let the Partridge software obtain such a list from the PAIR web site, and create your database for you. You may also choose to add records manually. You can enter a patent number or application serial number, together with your own reference (such as your attorney docket number). These items of information are stored in a data file, and the data file is used later when you ask for a status check of the registrations and applications. (Note: in this version, adding by patent number does not seem to work properly. If you must add a record manually, use the application serial number.)

Obtaining a master list of patent applications and patents from the PAIR site. One of the search options on the PAIR site is a search by customer number. The result of the search is a listing of patent applications and patents. Partridge does this for you. You simply click on "update", which offers you the following dialog box:

If you click "yes" (and we recommend you do so), then Partridge will obtain, from the PAIR web site, a list of all of your files that are associated with your customer number. These files will be placed in your master list database on the hard drive of your computer. This saves you from having to hand-type lots of application serial numbers into Partridge.

Partridge will do the customer number search and will retrieve all of the records yielded in the search. For each record, Partridge checks to see if you already have that serial number in your database, and if you don't, it will add it to the database and will send a notification via email. (Note that before you can use this feature, you must make sure your computer is connected to the Internet and you must make sure you have the USPTO Direct software running.)

If you are running the software for the first time and have no records in your database, then of course this obtaining-a-list process may add dozens or even hundreds of records to your database. This process could take many tens of minutes if you are using a slow modem connection.

If, on the other hand, you had previously used this "update the master list" function, and run it again, you may find that no records are added or that only one or two records are added.

A scroll box shows the patents and patent applications (if any) which have already been entered on the list. You can press "add a patent record" which permits you to add a patent record. An email message is sent to the notification list, reporting that a patent record has been added to the monitoring list, and the addition is logged to the log file.

The patent records are initially stored in the database in alphabetical order by the reference. Thus, if the references are provided (and are unique) then the HTML report will be ordered by reference. (The figure above shows the records after they have been sorted by patent number.)

You can select one patent record from the list to delete or edit. If you edit a record in this list, it will be re-inserted into the list according to its sort order, and a notification email will be sent to the persons on the notification list and will be logged. If you delete a record from this list, then that too will be reported to the persons on the notification list via email, and will be logged.

To modify the list of patents and patent applications to be monitored you start with the "edit" menu: Edit menu

You could then, for example, click "Add" to add a record to the database.

Adding a patent record. You can enter a new record to the database. You can enter a US patent number or a US patent application number. If the number you enter contains a "/" or or has eight digits, it is assumed to be a serial number. If it has seven or fewer digits it is assumed to be a patent number. (Note: at present, the feature of adding a patent number is broken. You should add by serial number instead.)You may optionally enter an attorney docket number (in the "reference" field), but the docket number you enter will be replaced with one from the PAIR site the first time a successful status update occurs. In the event of such a replacement, an email notification is sent.
Deleting a patent record. To delete one or more records, select the record or records, and then choose "delete". You will be asked if you really want to delete the records.

Once you have entered some application serial numbers or patent numbers, proceed to "performing an update", below.

The usual reason why you would add a patent record is that you have just filed a patent application with the US Patent Office and have learned the serial number. Thus you will want to enter the serial number into Partridge so that you can monitor the progress of the application through the Patent Office. But as a general matter it would be surprising if you were to enter the serial number into Partridge on the same day that PAIR begins providing information about that serial number in PAIR. Things could go either of two ways:

You might enter the serial number into Partridge before the Patent Office begins providing information about that serial number in PAIR. This could happen if, for example, the Patent Office enters a correspondence mailing address into the application file rather than your customer number. Thus, if some time goes by after you have been told your serial number and you are still getting a report from Partridge that it is unable to obtain any information about the application, you may wish to check with the Patent Office to find out what will be required to get your customer number associated with the application.
PAIR might offer information about the serial number before you learn the serial number. You can expect this to happen for many patent applications. The Office of Initial Patent Examination (OIPE) may create a record in the Patent Office PAIR system on the same day that it mails your post card to you telling you the serial number. If the record in the PAIR system has your customer number associated with it, then you will be able to see the record in PAIR. To catch such events, you may want to use the "update the master list" feature discussed below.

Performing an update

Before doing an update, you must make sure that (1) your computer is connected to the Internet and (2) you have the USPTO Direct software running to create a secure connection to the PAIR web site. Here is an example of what the USPTO Direct software looks like if it is running and successfully logged in: USPTO Direct logged in

You can update all of the records in the database, or you can update one or more selected records. Normally you would go to the "update" menu and select "all". (You can also do this by typing shift-F5.) When the updating process has finished, you should see this box: "all updated" dialog box

Note that you can only do one update per day for any particular record in the database; the software keeps track of the date of the most recent update and will not try to update a record a second time on a particular day. (There is a way to override this.) We find that the updates take around 45 seconds per record, on average, if the connection is a 28K modem, so that a 250-record database takes at least two hours to update. If, on the other hand, the Internet connection is a T1, we find that the 250-record database takes about twenty minutes to update.

The update process for Partridge involves several steps, each of which is performed automatically. First, the software attempts to obtain the main status page for the patent application or patent. If it is unable to obtain the main status page because of a timeout, then the record is tagged as not having been updated. If it is unable to obtain the main status page because PAIR refuses to provide information, this is probably because either (1) your customer number is not associated with that application, or (2) the serial number is not yet in the PAIR system.

Next, the software obtains the "file contents history" information, saving the most recent number, date, and contents description. Next the software obtains the "foreign priority" information, and finally the software obtains the "continuity data" information.

Once the update is complete, the software writes or rewrites a web page containing the results of the update. This web page can be placed on a web server and you can use the "find" feature of your browser to check on the status of a file. If you have accepted the default directory c:\program files\partridge\ then the web page may be found at c:\program files\partridge\partridge.html . The HTML page has a table with a line for each record, and in each line there is a link to the PAIR record on the USPTO web site for that patent application or patent. The web page includes attorney docket number, application number, application filing date, status, group art unit, class/sub-class, examiner name, location, patent number, issue date of patent, foreign priority, continuity data, and the most recent file contents history entry.

The Partridge software also creates an XML file which contains most of the information in the database. This permits you to write your own applications that read the XML file and extract data items of interest.

Sending email notifications. When an update has finished, there may be update notifications to send. Partridge keeps track of whether there are any update notifications to send, and if you try to exit Partridge at a time when there are notifications waiting to be sent, Partridge will prompt you and ask if you want to send the email notifications. We recommend you answer "yes" so that the notifications are sent.

Another way to send the notifications is to select "send E-Mail" from the "file" menu.

The update process is intended to compare the previous update results with today's update results. Thus, events which the update should detect include the following:

An Examiner has been assigned to your application. If the "examiner" field was previously empty and today contains the name of an Examiner, then this probably means that this Examiner has been assigned to your application. In the case of a PCT application that is entitled to be taken "out of order" under 37 CFR section 496, this means you will want to telephone the Examiner to make sure the Examiner is aware of this entitlement.
The application has been given a patent number and issue date. PAIR has been functioning for only a few months, but in our limited experience, PAIR (and thus Partridge) will show this information about a week before you receive the paper Issue Notification. This may be important if, for example, you want to make sure that you have filed a divisional or continuation prior to the issue date.
The application has been allowed. It takes a while for a Notice of Allowance to arrive in the mail. PAIR (and thus Partridge) can let you know of the case's allowance as soon as it is entered into the Patent Office system. This will be important if, for example, you are nearing the end of the six-month period for response to a final rejection. Normally you will file a protective Notice of Appeal, but if you know the case has been allowed then you may choose not to file the Notice of Appeal.
You aren't on the file any more. If for some reason the Patent Office has deleted your customer number from a file, then PAIR (and Partridge) will suddenly report that you are not authorized to view information about the file. This may be because the applicant has revoked your power of attorney, or may simply be a clerical error in the Patent Office. In any case you will want to inquire to make sure you know what happened.

The design goal of the Partridge software is that any change in the status reported by PAIR will generate an update notiication. Thus, any change in the first-screen information (e.g. a change in the location or examiner) should generate a notification. In addition, any change in the "history" or "foreign priority" or "continuity date" should give rise to an update notification.

Checking for new files in PAIR

The update you will likely want to perform most frequently is the update mentioned in the previous section, an update that is designed to tell you whether the status has changed for any of the patent applications and patents that you are monitoring. But there is an additional type of update that is important to perform from time to time, namely checking for new files in PAIR. To do this, you simply say "yes" to the question "do you want to update the master list?". The software will do a customer number search, and will check to see if any of the records obtained in the customer number search are new, that is, not already contained in your database. For any new record found by PAIR in the customer number search, a record is added to the Partridge database and an email notification is sent.

This check is an important one, because it will help you catch the problem early if somehow your customer number gets associated with a file that is not one of your files. It also may be your earliest way of learning the serial number on a newly filed application.

Sorting records in the database

The records in the database are initially in alphabetical order by the reference. You can click on a column heading to sort records according to the contents of that column. Clicking once yields an ascending sort, clicking a second time yields a descending sort.

Alternatively, you can sort by making selections at the "sort" menu: As you can see, you can sort on any of the many columns and can select an ascending or descending sort.

Each of these column sorts has the potential to be helpful to you in various ways.

Frequency. Sorting by frequency lets you view, for example, all of the records that have been set for monthly updates. You can scan through these records to see if one of the records is actually deserving of daily updates (perhaps having been mistakenly set for monthly updates).
Last change. Sorting by last change lets you see the records that changed most recently. This lets you review the recent changes to see if one of them is important in a way you had not previously appreciated.
Reference. This sort makes it easy for you to check the status of all files to a particular client. When this sort is done, all punctuation is ignored. You can also use this to look for "missing" files, for example if your files are numbered sequentially by client, you can look for a missing number which may represent a file that is supposed to have your customer number associated with it but that does not have your customer number associated with it.
Application number. This sort can be handy if you have an application number and wish to know which of your files it relates to.
Last history. Like "last change", this sort can help you find records that changed most recently. But it can take some time for the Patent Office to get a history item entered into the PAIR system. So the "last history" date may be quite different from the "last change" date.
Filed. This lets you sort by filing date.
Issued. This lets you sort by issue date. You might use this sort to group together all files that have issued. You can then easily select all such files and change their update frequency to "monthly" instead of daily. You can also use this sort to identify files that issued, say, three years ago, for maintenance fee reminder letters. (Note that you should use your existing docketing system for docketing maintenance fee reminders, and you should use Partridge merely as a backup to your existing docketing system.)
Examiner. This sort can be very handy in identifying applications that are all being handled by the same Examiner.
Art unit. This can be handy in identifying applications that are all being handled by the same group art unit.
Patent number. This can be helpful if you have a patent number and want to know what file it relates to.
Patent class. This lets you find files that have been classified into the same patent class.
Foreign. One way this can be helpful is if you have a particular foreign priority application and you would like to know which of your files claims priority from it. This sort also lets you find files that claim priority from the same foreign country.
Continuity. This lets you sort according to the continuity data.

If you finish a sort and exit from Partridge, the HTML and XML files will be rewritten according to the results of the latest sort.

The view menu

The view menu offers five choices. The first two choices are specific to a particular record that you have selected. The remaining three choices are not specific to any particular record.

.View web page. Select this option, and your web browser will be launched to show the PAIR page for the record. (Note that for pending patent applications, this will work only if your computer is connected to the Internet and if you have the USPTO Direct software running.)
View details. This brings up a dialog box which presents an editing screen containing most of the text information for the selected record or records. You can then select text within this box (using your mouse) and type control-C to copy the text to your Windows clipboard. This permits you to paste such information into an application such as a draft letter or draft response to an office action. This extremely helpful feature makes it easy to caption a response to an office action with the name of the Examiner, the group art unit, the serial number, the filing date, the date of the Office Action being responded to, and your attorney docket number.
View report. Clicking on this menu item launches your web browser so that you are able to view your HTML report file.
View log file. This launches Notepad to view your Partridge log file. This can be helpful in troubleshooting the software. It shows the most recent thousand or so logged events.
View TCP/IP flow. This opens a window to let you follow all of the TCP/IP messages passing into and out of Partridge. This can also be helpful in troubleshooting.

Right-clicking on patent records

You can select one or more patent records, and then right-click on them. The choices include:

Update selected. If you have selected one or more records, you can perform a status update for those records. (The USPTO/Direct software must be running and logged in for this to work.) You can also accomplish such an update by selecting one or more records and pressing F5.
Update all. This will update all of your records. (The USPTO/Direct software must be running and logged in for this to work.) You can also accomplish such an update by selecting one or more records and pressing Shift-F5.
Clear error. If there is an error listed in the error status for a record (e.g. an unsuccessful update attempt was made) then this selection clears the error.
Clear last update. Normally if a record has been updated on a particular day, the Partridge software will refuse to update the record a second time. This is to minimize unnecessary processing burdens on the PAIR server in the Patent Office. But it might happen that you performed an update too early in the day, before the Patent Office had loaded the day's new data into the system. In such a case, you can select some or all of the records in Partridge and select "clear last update". This overrides the "last update" field, and clears the "last update" field of each record and you can do updates all over again even though a previous update was done that day.
Change reference. This permits you to change the reference (attorney docket number) for a record. This might happen because you previously typed a reference incorrectly. Note that at such time as an update is successfully performed, the reference contained in PAIR will replace the reference which you typed manually.
Change frequency. This permits you to select a different update frequency for one or more records. For example, you might want to select all your records that have a patent number (by sorting on patent number) and then change the update frequency for all such records to "monthly".
Delete. This lets you delete one or more records. You will be asked to confirm the deletion.
View webpage. This launches your web browser and views the PAIR status page for the selected record. Note that this works only if you have selected one record (rather than more than one), and only works if you have the USPTO/Direct software running and logged in.
View details. This will display a text window containing the text details for the one or more selected records. You can then copy and paste this into another Windows application such as a word processor. This can be very handy if you are writing a letter to a client summarizing the status of the client's several pending patent applications.

Privacy information

The Partridge software is set up so that approximately every fourth time it generates an email report, it will send a small email report to Oppedahl & Olson LLP. The email report does not identify any of the patent applications or patents being monitored. It does, however, tell us the email address or addresses to which status reports are sent, as well as the organization name and purely statistical information such as the number of registrations or applications being monitored and the number of errors encountered when performing updates. Oppedahl & Olson LLP will keep the email addresses in confidence and will not provide them to anyone not connected with the Partridge software. The statistical information from each user will be merged with statistical information from other users. While the merged information may be publicly revealed, we will keep in confidence the contents of the individual email reports.

We may, from time to time, send email messages to one or more of the email addresses collected from the email reports. This will only be done in connection with the Partridge software, for example to inform users of releases of new versions of the software, or of known problems with the software and possible solutions.

Troubleshooting

If you have trouble getting the Partridge software to work, please do not ask Oppedahl & Olson LLP for help with the software. Please keep in mind that the software is being provided to you free of charge. We intend that the software will work well for you, and we invite you to use the "test" buttons described above if you are having problems. You may find helpful troubleshooting information on our web site at http://www.oppedahl.com/partridge We strongly urge you to join the PAIR and Partridge email discussion groups, where you can post reports of problems and perhaps learn that other PAIR or Partridge users have already figured out the solutions. Instructions for joining the PAIR discussion group may be seen at http://www.oppedahl.com/pair. Instructions for joining the Partridge discussion group may be seen at http://www.oppedahl.com/partridge.

. If you cannot find the answer to your problem in this help file, or on the Partridge web site, or in either of the email discussion lists, then you can consider sending it via email to partridge-support@oppedahl.com, but we cannot promise that you will receive a response.

Testing to see if USPTO/Direct is working. If you find that Partridge isn't updating records at all, you should check to see if you have USPTO/Direct working. (It is necessary that USPTO/Direct be running and logged in before you try to do a Partridge update.) To test this, go to your web browser and see if you can make use of the Patent Office PAIR site. If you are able to use PAIR to do a search on your customer number, then you know that USPTO/Direct is working as it should. Only after you have gotten USPTO/Direct and PAIR working fully should you attempt to use Partridge.

Closing your web browser prematurely. When you run USPTO/Direct and log in, the next thing that happens is that your web browser is launched and is opened to the PAIR page. You can then run Partridge. But if you close your web browser, it will cause USPTO/Direct to close automatically. The result is that Partridge won't work for updates any more. So you should refrain from closing your web browser until after you have finished your Partridge update.

Sending a test email message. One of the important capabilities of the Partridge software is that it sends email messages to let people know of the change of status of a patent or patent application. This can only work if you have configured Partridge properly with a functioning SMTP server. To test your configuration of the SMTP server you can use a test feature. "send test email" menu

You can press "send E-Mail to Return Address" and the Partridge software will try to send a test email message to the person listed in the "return address" field of the configuration screen. You can press "send E-Mail to Notification Addresses" and the Partridge software will try to send test email messages to each of the persons listed in the "notification addresses" field of the configuration screen. You should then have the person or persons check their email to see if the test email message has been received. If this test fails (and if the previous two tests did not fail) then you should check to see whether you have correctly determined your SMTP server and entered it in the "SMTP server" field of the configuration screen.

The importance of backups

We recommend you make periodic backups of one important file, namely "patent.dat", which contains your list of patent applications and patents and the corresponding references. The other files can be reconstructed by simply reinstalling the software.

Credits

Partridge was created by Carl Oppedahl and Polar Engineering and Consulting.

Last revised: August 21, 2006