The LEDES Board is please to announce the ratification of new UTBMS codes specific to Patent Prosecution. The new code set is the result of a Subcommittee formed in 2022, tasked with investigating the existing model for initiating, tracking, and invoicing IP matters and to recommend potential improvements in data definition and communication that would increase the business value of legal matter billing information by enabling more valid and useful opportunities for sophisticated analysis of IP billing data.
The new Patent Prosecution codes, hereafter known as the “110” Patent Prosecution Codes, were ratified in April 2023. They are a hierarchy of phase and deliverable categories that are significantly more relevant to the actual workstreams in a patent application matter than are previous IP codes set forth by an LOC working group in 2009. A mapping of USPTO PAIR codes to each of these phases is provided to illustrate how this data can be leveraged to better track and monitor the status of a patent application filing, for example to validate invoice activity.
It is the intention of the Subcommittee to continue working with this framework to include new hierarchies for IP General Advice, Portfolio Assessment and Trademark/Copyright in the next few years. Please watch for updates on this project on www.LEDES.org and www.UTBMS.com.
This code set introduces a different numbering pattern than has been used in the past, one that does not begin with alpha characters, but utilizes a similar numbering hierarchy that is supported in all of the LEDES ebilling file specification documents.
The new codes are available here.
