Timezone correct
"Today" is computed in the tenant timezone, so a deadline never looks overdue a day early, or late, for a team in another part of the world.
Patent Docketing and Deadline Management
Patent Docketing That Never Misses a Deadline
One missed annuity payment or office-action response can cost a client an entire patent. Docketing is built as an audit-first, never-miss-a-date engine that derives every statutory and procedural deadline from your case data, scores each one by risk, and pushes it to the right person before it comes due.
Tracks across your case hierarchy
Application FamiliesPRV ApplicationsPCT FilingsNPE CasesOffice ActionsAnnuity FeesPatent FeesCustom Reminders
The unified deadline engine
One Engine, Seven Deadline Types
Deadlines are not a manual calendar. A single engine derives every statutory and procedural deadline across the entire case hierarchy and presents them in one prioritized, filterable view, each bucketed by urgency from overdue through upcoming and tagged with its family, assignee, and (for fees) amount and currency.
| Deadline Type | Derived From | Sub-types |
|---|---|---|
| Office Action Response | NPE office actions (due date) | Non-final, Final, Advisory |
| Annuity / Renewal Fee | NPE annuity fees (due date + grace period) | On-time, In-grace window |
| PCT Deadlines | PCT filings | Chapter I (Rule 22), Chapter II (Rule 30/31) |
| PRV Deadlines | Provisional applications | Expiry, Conversion deadline |
| Patent Fees | Fees on any entity | Across 8 fee categories |
| NPE Deadlines | NPE cases | Patent expiry, Request for Examination (RFE) |
| Custom Reminders | User-created reminders | One-time or recurring |
Grace periods understood
Annuity fees track a grace-period end date, so the system distinguishes "overdue but still payable in grace" from "truly lapsed."
Status aware
Abandoned, granted, or already-paid items drop out of the active deadline view automatically, so the list stays the work that actually remains.
Risk scoring
Triage by Real Risk, Not Just Date Order
Every deadline gets a 0 to 100 risk score and a traffic-light level, so attorneys triage by genuine risk. The score is a weighted blend of four signals, and scores roll up into a portfolio-level breakdown for an at-a-glance health read.
RedAmberGreen70+ red · 40+ amber · else green
Time pressure
How close, or how far past, the deadline is. Overdue items spike toward 100.
Type severity
Office actions (90) and annuities (80) outrank routine reminders (20).
Overdue cascade
Already-overdue or open past-due items escalate sharply rather than plateauing.
Assignment gap
Unassigned deadlines are penalized. An orphaned deadline is a dangerous deadline.
Proactive notifications
Deadlines Come to You, Not the Other Way Around
Docketing does not wait for users to log in. Three automated digest jobs push deadlines out, each respecting user notification preferences, throttled to provider limits, and failing gracefully per user.
Daily Deadline Digest
Every morning at 8 AM in each tenant local timezone, every user gets the deadlines coming due within a configurable window, pre-sorted by risk.
Reminder-Due Email
The same morning send for custom reminders falling due that day, so team-specific tasks land alongside statutory deadlines.
Weekly Stale-Alert Digest
Mondays at 9 AM local, a hygiene report of the things quietly going wrong that no hard deadline would surface.
Stale-alert hygiene report
Catch What Date-Only Docketing Misses
Beyond hard deadlines, the system surfaces silent risks, cases that are not generating a deadline but still need attention. The weekly report covers six buckets.
Families with no filings
A docket opened but never built out, sitting empty and forgotten.
Stale records
PRV, PCT, or NPE entities untouched past a threshold (default 90 days).
Overdue open office actions
Past due and still not responded, the single most expensive thing to miss.
Unpaid overdue fees
Annuities past due, surfaced with grace-period and amount context.
Expired reminders
Pending reminders whose date has already passed without action.
Stale families
Active families with no updates inside the threshold window.
Fees, firms, and operations
The Operating Layer Around Every Deadline
Fees, outside counsel, family health, dashboards, and bulk operations all feed the same prioritized deadline view, so the docket reflects how patent work actually flows.
Multi-currency fees
Track patent and annuity fees with status, due date, amount, and currency. Analytics roll up spend across the portfolio with date-accurate FX conversion into one chosen currency.
Outside-counsel directory
A searchable, tenant-scoped roster of firms and agents, with per-case assignments by role (lead counsel, local agent, foreign associate, annuity provider) and duplicate-assignment protection.
Family completeness scoring
Each family gets a 0 to 100 data-completeness score across family fields, child coverage, and child quality, turning "is this docket set up correctly?" into a measurable number.
Portfolio dashboard
Status breakdowns across families, PRVs, PCTs, NPE cases, office actions, annuities, and reminders, plus deadline-window counts and the aggregate risk breakdown, as of any chosen date.
Bulk CSV import
Onboard whole portfolios in one pass, importing families with their PRV, PCT, and NPE child records and key dates, with validation and column mapping.
Filtering and export
Filter deadlines by type, family, priority, date range, and assignee, with a "mine only" view for limited-permission users. Export deadlines, fees, and entity lists to CSV.
Audit, security and compliance
Audit-First, Tenant-Isolated, Built to Survive Review
Docketing inherits the platform multi-tenant, audit-first architecture. The same controls that make the platform defensible in enterprise procurement apply to every reminder, fee, and case.
Full audit trail
Every create, update, and delete on reminders, fees, and cases is logged with actor, before and after state, timestamp, IP, and request ID.
Reason-for-change enforced
Edits to sensitive fields such as dates and statuses require a typed reason, and deletions always do. The field is never null, mirroring 21 CFR Part 11 patterns.
Tenant isolation
Every query runs under PostgreSQL Row-Level Security inside a tenant-scoped transaction. One firm can never see another firm docket.
Role-based access
Read versus write is enforced server-side per module (prv, pct, npe, and the rest). "View all reminders" versus "only mine" is a permission, not a UI toggle.
Docketing Questions
How deadlines are derived, scored, and surfaced before they come due.
No. Deadlines are computed on read from the underlying case records, not entered manually. The moment you set a filing date or a publication date, every dependent statutory and procedural deadline appears automatically and stays correct as the case changes.
Seven types across the whole case hierarchy: office action responses, annuity and renewal fees, PCT deadlines (Chapter I Rule 22 and Chapter II Rule 30/31), PRV deadlines (expiry and conversion), patent fees, NPE deadlines (patent expiry and request for examination), and custom reminders. Each is bucketed by urgency from overdue through upcoming.
Every deadline gets a 0 to 100 score blending four signals: time pressure (40%), type severity (25%), overdue cascade (25%), and assignment gap (10%). A score of 70 or higher is red, 40 or higher is amber, and anything lower is green. Scores roll up into a portfolio-level breakdown so managers get an at-a-glance health read.
No. "Today" is computed in each tenant local timezone, so a deadline is never miscolored for a team in another part of the world. Annuity fees also track a grace-period end date, so the system separates "overdue but still payable in grace" from "truly lapsed."
Three automated jobs push deadlines out: a daily deadline digest (8 AM local, pre-sorted by risk), a reminder-due email the same morning, and a weekly stale-alert hygiene report on Mondays at 9 AM local. Sends respect each user notification preferences, are throttled to provider limits, and fail gracefully per user so one bad address never blocks the batch.
It surfaces silent risks that no hard deadline would catch: families with no filings, stale PRV/PCT/NPE records, overdue open office actions, unpaid overdue fees, expired reminders, and stale families. It is the "what is slipping through the cracks?" view that date-only docketing misses.
Yes. Fees and annuities carry an amount and currency, and analytics roll up spend across the portfolio with date-accurate FX conversion into a single chosen reporting currency. Fees attach polymorphically to families, PRV, PCT, NPE cases, or office actions, so renewal exposure is visible at every level.
Every create, update, and delete on reminders, fees, and cases is logged with actor, before and after state, timestamp, IP, and request ID. Edits to sensitive fields require a typed reason, deletions always do, and tenant data is isolated with PostgreSQL Row-Level Security. Read versus write is enforced server-side per module.
Annuity and renewal fees are tracked with amount, currency, due date, fee year, renewal year, and a grace-period end date. The engine derives each renewal deadline automatically from the case data, buckets it by urgency, and the daily digest surfaces it before it comes due, distinguishing "overdue but still payable in grace" from "truly lapsed."
Deadlines are computed on read from the case records rather than typed into a calendar, so they cannot be forgotten or entered wrong. Unassigned deadlines are penalized in the risk score, abandoned or paid items drop out automatically, and three automated digests push what is due to the responsible owner. The weekly stale-alert report catches cases that are silently going wrong without generating a hard deadline.
Most teams start with a bulk CSV import. You upload your existing portfolio and the system validates every row before anything touches the database, then creates families with their PRV, PCT, and NPE child records and key dates in a single atomic transaction with a full audit trail. Because deadlines are derived on read, every dependent deadline appears automatically the moment the dates are imported.
It is a cloud web application with nothing to install. Every list view (deadlines, fees, families, PRV, PCT, NPE, and audit logs) supports one-click CSV export, bulk CSV import handles onboarding, and a REST API is available for custom integrations with existing firm systems.
See Your Docket Score Itself by Risk
Book a walkthrough on a sample portfolio, or explore free patent search to start building families that feed the deadline engine.