How to choose the best trademark docketing software?

All right, so you are looking forward to investing in software for managing your trademarks portfolio. Fine, you might have already done a lot of Google and referrals for the trademark docketing software. And probably you have not decided any software yet. You are at the right place!

�IP Docketers� have experience of working on a multitude of IP (both Patent & Trademark) docketing software. With the help of our experience of intellectual property docketing services and docket consultancy, we have developed ten (10) decision-making questions with a multitude of sub-questions under each question. We believe if you find the answer to all of these ten (10) decision-making questions, you can select software very easily. Indeed, we used a few of these questions to probe our clients for their requirements while providing our docket consultancy. Now sharing them for the mass benefit. Nevertheless, you can always ask us for our expert advices.

Here below are the ten (10) questions:

1. Is a Trademark Management System inevitable?
2. Does the Trademark System have auto-Docket capabilities?
3. Does the system have easy reports and analytics capabilities?
4. Does the system have electronic files management capabilities?
5. Does the trademark system support client view?
6. Does the trademark system support paralegal access?
7. Does the system support configuration and customization?
8. Does the system have full functionality?
9. Does the system have auto-auditing capabilities?
10. Does the trademark system fit your style of docketing?

1. Is a Trademark Management System inevitable?
This question develops further questions:

a. Do you really need a trademark management system? Probably, the answer is in yes as you are reading this article, however, we were just thinking you probably need not to start right now or you can manage them in any other system you are using as of now.

b. What is the focus of your IP portfolio? Trademark or Patents? If your portfolio focus is Patents probably you should look for software specially designed for patents. However, if your portfolio focus is Trademarks you should look for software with a primary focus on Trademarks. The specially designed Trademark software can help you in many ways including organizing the trademark-related information effectively into the system.

c. Are you using any system for patents management? If yes, it is most likely the case that your portfolio is patents focused and for this reason you already have the patent management system in place. If you have a patent management system in place then you probably don�t need a system and your trademark should be accommodated with the patent system. Generally, the IP systems are so designed that these accommodate all kind of IPs. Nevertheless, your decision should be based upon your IP portfolio focus. It will help in the long run as you are expected to grow in your focus area.

2. Does the Trademark System have auto-Docket capabilities?
Very important feature. It solves a lot of questions including Does the system have inbuilt country-specific rules? How many country rules does the system have? Does it have the country rules you mostly file in? Does the system help you in creating task automatically on the basis of actions happening in different countries or specific countries? Does the system have push or pull task, deadline or reminder generation capabilities? Does the system send you automatic alerts for deadlines? Etc.
Further, the trademark management system should have an ability to create profiles of frequently created matters so that the steps are not repeated and chances of errors are reduced.

3. Does the system have easy reports and analytics capabilities?
This is one of the most important features. It helps you in generating you the pivot view of your complete system. It becomes important to check the easiness of report creation in the system. Try to get answers to the following questions: Can we create or view a report of tasks assigned to a particular attorney? Can we create a report of actions of the users of the trademark management system? Check for other critical reports you need. Further, can the system create reports using mixed data inputs? Does it automatically save the report you create or save the reports? Can it send periodic reports to clients automatically? Can we send the report as an attachment directly and automatically from the system?

4. Does the system have electronic files management capabilities?
These days, every organization is trying to become paperless. Check if the system is making your organization paperless. It should have all the facilities and tools, which can make the organization paperless. The tools should be so designed that they make dedicated document management tools redundant. The system should have the capability to organize files in the system. Basic functionalities including creating an index of documents as per the matters, renaming documents after uploading the document and capabilities to add any kind of document including, PDF, word or email correspondences etc.

5. Does the trademark system support client view?
Many systems provide the facility to manually send reports to clients and others have automatic reports to clients, however, at times, the clients demand more. They demand a complete view of their matters. This functionality actually depends upon client usage. However, it is good to have.

6. Does the trademark system support paralegal access?
This feature becomes important when you hire a third party remote intellectual property docketing service providers or paralegals to manage your docketing system. Though, you can control the paralegal access using the settings of the system, however, having a dedicated module for the paralegals is a plus. Further, if the system doesn�t have a dedicated paralegal module, it must have capabilities to manage limited access to the system.

7. Does the system support configuration and customization?
Configuration and customization are a must-have feature. Can the system follow your nomenclature for Docketing or does the system have fixed internal docket numbers? Does the system have the facility to customize the auto-generation of tasks? Does the system have the facility to customize the index for document upload etc.?

8. Does the system have full functionality?
Does the system have capabilities to accommodate other IP matters? Though your focus is on Trademarks, however, you might need to manage a few patents or copyrights or domain names. Your system should have full functionality. You should not be forced to purchase another software for IP matters other than Trademark.

9. Does the system have auto-auditing capabilities?
Is the system well connected with PTO? Is the system automatically compares the data available in the trademark management system with the data available at the PTO? Is the system able to run auto-audit as per schedule? Ideally, periodic auditing and data correction should be there to maintain the good health of the trademark management system.

10. Does the trademark system fit your style of docketing?
That�s really an important feature. The system should be so flexible that it can be customized with the internal docketing process in such a way that it feels that we got an improved system, not an incomplete one.

We wish you good luck in choosing the apt trademark docketing system. Don�t hesitate to take free consultation from the IPDocketers while selecting a system. We might have good inputs as per your requirements. Call IP Docketers at 408 414 7379 or email at mail @ ipdocketers.com.