TERMS
In Lola, as in all Intellectual Property cases, terms management is an essential factor.
The main kinds of terms taken into consideration are the Internal, Clients, Official and Last terms.
Entering terms is easily done, the end user being free to calculate them by himself or to accept the result of a calculation formula; thus, it is more practical to set only once, that a patent application Priority term is regularly calculated 12 months from the filing date.
Terms can belong to cases, interveners, or departments: patents, trademarks, designs, domain names, …
They can be checked easily; the end user currently logged in always has his own terms at his disposal on his Lola welcome page. He can allow one of his colleagues to check them during his vacation or on the other hand, be in charge of other colleagues’ terms. Printing terms is rapidly performed thanks to various template reports.
Additionally, it is possible to have recurrent batch processings run periodically, to take over terms queried in pre-defined settings.
The following demo shows the terms and the personal agenda of the logged-in end user.
CASES PROCEDURES
In Lola, as in all Industrial Property cases, the procedure management is of utmost importance.
The procedure of a case depends on its subject which makes it possible to deal with patent cases in the appropriate way and differently from trademarks, designs, domain names and so on. Each subject is composed of several case categories in order to focus on the required procedure; thus, European patents display settings to deal with national validations of designated countries, Community trademarks settings to deal with the conversion of its countries into national trademarks.
The case category structure is what « sticks » the most to the procedure management of each title; it makes it possible to follow its course starting from filing preparation up to being granted, thanks to settings where the steps necessary to the workflow are listed, such as monitoring terms, generating mails or emails, gathering tariffs prior to the invoices and so on. A dynamic can also be set so that at the completion of an event, the next logical one is automatically suggested to enter into action. Furthermore, cases and users conditions wisely placed in the settings, will provide high security level.
All settings can be customized in order to fit the internal organization of the IP Office.
The following demo shows how to manage an official action for a US trademark.
VALIDATIONS OF GRANTED EP CASES
The grant of a European application leads to obligatory tasks to maintain the title in force in the designated countries and this, within a relatively short period of time.
Stopping European annuities payment, creating the validated countries cases, copying the necessary data, managing annuities in each of the validated countries represent a considerable and repetitive mass of work where no mistakes can be made.
The following demo shows how to manage this procedure which, as you will see, can be done in Lola in record time.
INVOICES
In Lola, an in-depth approach is given to financial management; thus, using a tariffs and currencies database, the generation of invoices, establishment of cost estimates, provisional budgets and so on… are produced in a flash.
Clients’ particulars are, of course, taken into account so that specifics such as Tariff clients « A », Discount of 2% on our own fees, E-invoicing client, VAT calculation at the required rate, conditions of payment and so on are not overlooked.
Everything to do with accounting is taken into consideration: consultants’ timesheets, agency disbursements, advance payments, miscellaneous charges and, if you have a compatible software, the accounting interface will be instantaneous.
The following demo shows how to invoice the filing of a domain name.
TIMESHEET
Whose screen has never ended up looking like a daisy?
Monday Case n° 12524 (2H) to modify the claims,
Tuesday afternoon (Study of a patent description with client ZYX)
Wednesday morning Japanese case n° 6789/AA (answer to 2nd Official Action)
…
In Lola, recording time offers several advantages: keyboarding goes quickly, fewer data have to be filled-in and well placed control systems avoid mistakes. Several ways to record time are offered to the end user.
Cases are then automatically filled-in with the valorization of the timesheet which makes it easier to prepare the future invoice.
An important part is allotted to the consultation of times, amounts, clients, cases, etc.
The following demo shows how to record and check the time spent on a case.
CLASS LABELS
It can be such a burden to get trademark classes straight! Not in Lola, however. This task becomes straightforward thanks to several mechanisms available to the end user.
Besides the catalog classes titles published by the Trademark Office, the end user can store template labels for a country or even a client.
Copying class labels from other cases is easily done for some or all classes of the case concerned.
The thoroughly detailed “Historic” makes it possible to follow the evolution of classes regarding both additions and deletions. Nor is the procedure stage neglected: was it at filing, at registration? Saving label modifications makes it possible to compare classes in detail, emphasizing what has been added or deleted.
Lola manages uni-class countries and prevents adding several classes in such cases. When a multi-class parent case generates uni-class cases, once again, Lola detects this specificity and opens as many children cases as the number of classes of the parent case.
A specific Bulk Actions makes it possible to manage classes in a set of cases.
The following demo shows how to add a class, alter its standard label, and check the “Historic” of the modifications.
REGISTRATIONS
In Lola, managing registrations, either clients’ statutes changes, title assignments or others, is easily and rapidly done.
As concerns statutes changes, these data must be recorded on the client’s form; then Lola detects the titles for which a registration must take place and indicates in the client’s cases, that his Corporate Name is « obsolete ».
The Registration tab of each case makes it possible to check whether all changes have been registered.
A specific Bulk Action is available to carry out this task in a set of cases.
The following demo shows how to record the registration of a client’s change of Legal Form in a patent case.
COST ESTIMATES
National filings, foreign extensions, validations of granted European cases, entry into national phases of PCT are just some of the instances when cost estimates have to be made.
In Lola, once tariff and cost-estimate templates are created, it is child’s play to calculate an estimate.
The detailed partnership share management makes it possible to deal with part or all of the cost estimate, depending on clients’ instructions.
Once the client accepts the cost estimate, it can be easily transferred into the final invoice.
The following demo shows how to generate a cost estimate for the foreign extension of a French patent in a partnership context.
ANNUAL BUDGETS
The end of the year is often the period when clients worry about their portfolio maintenance and wish to know as quickly as possible the cost of maintaining their titles for the coming year.
When portfolios amount to several hundred cases, this can be a daunting task. Not in Lola, however, where a few clicks are enough!
Budgets can be calculated for the period required by the client: per year, per semester, per quarter, or per month. In addition to maintenance fees, which are automatically calculated, the end user can add procedure charges whenever necessary.
The titles are displayed in a pre-sorted list. In the case of a series, basic cases are listed first, in red, and just below are their corresponding cases. They can, however, be moved if necessary.
Two kinds of display make it possible to consult either the cases for which a payment has to be done during the required period, or the whole portfolio, which will entail contextual labels explaining the reason for non-payment within the queried period: No more annuity for the country, Next renewal due on —-/–/–, Annuities managed through an other way…
Many tools are available to end users to check the budget, open corresponding cases, check tariffs, recalculate totals if tariffs have been updated, as well as several printing listings.
The following demo shows how to calculate a “patent” budget for the year 2009.
