PatDek solves the never-ending, nagging problem we face as patent litigators - cutting/pasting/editing claim charts with changes, as our analysis of the prior art evolved over time. Maybe the change was adding or removing a passage from several charts, harmonizing citation formats, or altering the mapping of certain disclosures to specific claim limitations based on group feedback. For whatever reason, someone would identify a change that needed to be made for a prior art reference, and this change needed to be made across a number claim limitations and for a number of charts. Usually multiple edits were required and all of these edits needed to be made to all of the charts. These changes were time-consuming and interfered with our primary task - reviewing potentially relevant prior art references. For a given project, editing charts decreased the time that could be better allocated to applying the most relevant references against the target set of claims.

In our minds, effectiveness was impacted by the editing process. Now consider the next phase of litigation, after preliminary invalidity contentions. The charts may need to be changed against because of claim construction rulings or expert witness input, or maybe there is a new prior art reference for a combination. Yet another set of changes and more time devoted to a new theory further increases the time spent editing charts, not refining invalidity theories.

With PatDek, each change is made once and the change is applied to every applicable instance. Changing charts is no longer a time-consuming problem.

That was the thought process we followed. Why not make our jobs easier and just analyze references, then let a computer put charts together for us once the analysis is underway? This seemed straightforward, or so we thought back in 2001. Flash forward a decade and we're getting there, and we learned a lot along the way.