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Patents — Transactions

Overview

Patents is the company's intellectual property registry — a tracking system for patent applications and grants across the full filing lifecycle. Each record follows a patent from initial submission through formal and substantive examination, grant, and expiration. The screen has two tabs: Patents for the IP registry, and Documents for the catalog of document types used in patent filings.

For the patent status lifecycle and transition rules, see: Workflow.

Note

This transaction follows the standard record list layout. See: Common Features

Patents tab

The main registry of all patent records. Each row represents one patent identified by a PAT.{ID} code.

What you will see

The table displays: Code (PAT.{ID}), Company (the internal company that holds the patent), Title, Number (official patent number), Submitted By, key dates (Formal Examination Request, Substantive Examination Request, Filing, Grant), Type, Classification, Sub Classification, Expiration Date, and Status.

Calculated expiration

The expiration date is not stored directly — it is calculated from the Filing Date plus an Expiration duration (entered as years and months when creating or editing the patent). If no filing date is set, the expiration column shows -.

Status filters show: ACTV and REJC. Use the filter to show rejected patents alongside active ones.

What you can do here

  • + New Patent — Register a new patent. Fields:

    • Patent Company (required) — the internal company that owns the patent.
    • Title (required) and Number (required).
    • Submitted By — name of the person who filed the application.
    • Patent Type, Classification, Sub Classification — from their respective catalogs.
    • Patent Author(s) — one or more SARA collaborators listed as inventors.
    • Key dates: Formal Examination Request Date, Substantive Examination Request Date, Filing Date, Grant Date.
    • Expiration — entered as Years and Months from the filing date.
    • Document files — up to three attachments can be uploaded at creation time: Patent Title, Patent Application, and Other (PDF, Word, or image formats accepted).

  • View — Read-only summary of all patent fields, authors, and attached files (with download links). Available for all patents regardless of status.

  • Edit — Modify any patent field. Only available when the patent is not in a terminal status (Rejected or Inactive).

  • Notes and logs — Add internal notes to a patent record and view its change log.

  • Update status — Manually advance or change the patent's status. See Workflow for the available transitions.

Documents tab

A catalog of patent document types — the categories of documents that can be associated with a patent filing (e.g., "Patent Title", "Patent Application", "Office Action"). This is an administrative catalog, not the same as the /documents module.

What you will see

The table shows: ID, Title, Description, and a Documents column listing any files attached to that document type (each as a download button). Status is shown per row.

What you can do here

  • + New Document — Create a new document type entry with a title, description, and optionally one or more attached files.
  • Edit — Modify the title and description of an existing active document type.
  • View — Read-only detail of the document type and its files.
  • Logs — View the change history for that document type entry.
  • Deactivate / Activate — Toggle the document type between ACTV and INAC.

Permissions

Permissions

Access and actions are permission-driven. See: Permissions