Patdek has been developing a new way to make PDF documents more useful - the anchored snippet. Gone are the days of highlighting and referring to excerpts in a PDF. You can now show anyone precisely in a document, what should be considered, and what's important. We call it the anchored snippet.
Think about a snippet as an excerpt from an article, webpage, or a more formal document like a patent. To the right you can see part of a Google search result list for "patdek" that includes snippets from webpages. When a person clicks on one of the links, the browser displays the webpage. But the user now has to scan the webpage to find the information that was shown in the search result list as a snippet.
For a typical PDF, such as a patent, file history, or a PTAB Institution Decision, important parts of the document can be highlighted for later consideration. But just like moving from Google search results to the chosen webpage, the process of reviewing PDF content can sometimes create frustration. Just like that time when you looked for that PDF having those highlights from two weeks ago. Then you have to find the different highlighted passages within the PDF.
Now imagine that you highlighted five different PDFs a month ago. You can't remember which folder the documents are in, and you need to send some of the highlighted information to a client or colleague.
The anchored snippet solves this precise problem. First, searching for the document by name, content, or a tag helps you retrieve at least one document from the group. Because the highlighted material is probably related in some way, different snippets were given a group tag to link the snippets together.
By using a common tag, a user can quickly scan through a grouped list of snippets. By clicking any snippet, the user jumps right to the highlighted page in the document. Moving back to a list view, you can share the group of snippets with other people in one action. The recipient can see the snippets and review just the snippets or jump into any of the documents for a more thorough review.
Take that scenario even further and assume that each document was 50+ pages. Think about the task of sending an email of five 50+ page PDFs. Now consider how to explain to the recipient what pages to review that have highlighted passages. Quite cumbersome. Anchored snippets put you or your audience face to face with the precise location of the important information -- the exact page. And you don't even have to scan through a document if the snippet answers the question.
No more scrolling or skimming documents for information you previously reviewed. Just make a snippet of the passage the first time, tag it for relevance, and it's saved for when you need it. Group snippets by a common tag and you create snippet lists for sharing or later review. And the anchored snippet list supports the jump feature because every snippet is anchored to a specific page in the PDF document. To see a quick demonstration of anchored snippets on the Patdek platform, just play the short video on the right.
The next time you share a set of documents that you meticulously reviewed, highlighted, and then thoughtfully commented, consider how much simpler the process could be with anchored snippets.