10,000+ IDS Preparation & Filings and Counting: Why Law Firms Trust Draft n Craft With Their Most Critical IP Work
Draft n Craft IP Team · IP Docketing & Paralegal Services · 8 min read
| 10,000+ IDS prepared & filed | 500,000+ References managed and cross cited | 100+ Years collective experience | 80+ US law firms supported |
We’ve prepared over 10,000 IDS and filed at USPTO. That’s not a marketing number, it’s a reflection of the trust law firms, in-house teams, and patent practitioners place in us every single day. Here’s what that experience actually means for your IP practice.
Most firms don’t think about their IDS workflow until something goes wrong. A missed foreign office action. A continuation filed without proper carryover. A newly discovered reference that sat in an inventor’s inbox for six months without ever reaching prosecution counsel.
By the time the gap surfaces, usually in litigation or during a validity challenge, the damage is already done. An unenforceable patent. A client relationship in ruins. Malpractice exposure no one saw coming.
At Draft n Craft, we exist to close those gaps before they open.
The IDS obligation is harder than most firms realise
Under 37 C.F.R. § 1.56, every person substantively involved in a patent application, inventors, attorneys, and company representatives alike, carries a continuous duty to disclose all information material to patentability. That duty doesn’t end at filing. It runs through prosecution, continuation filings, RCEs, and even the post-allowance window.
“If you’ve seen it, read it, or received it during prosecution, it likely belongs in your IDS. The examiner can only protect what you give them.”
What makes this genuinely difficult at scale is the sheer number of triggers, and how easy it is to miss one when you’re managing a portfolio of 50, 100, or 300 active applications simultaneously.
The 5 events that require an IDS filing or update
- Application filing — Any prior art known at the time must be disclosed, ideally within three months to avoid additional USPTO fees.
- Foreign office action received — Examination results from the EPO, JPO, CNIPA, or any parallel jurisdiction must be cross-filed into your US prosecution promptly.
- Newly discovered prior art — Whether from a literature search, competitor product launch, or third-party communication, mid-prosecution awareness triggers an immediate obligation.
- Continuation or RCE filing — A fresh IDS is required at every continuation or divisional. Everything from the parent prosecution must carry over cleanly.
- Post-allowance, pre-issue — Material references discovered after a notice of allowance still require a supplemental IDS before the patent issues.
What happens when the IDS process breaks down
The consequences aren’t theoretical. Courts have voided patents years after grant, not because the underlying invention lacked novelty, but because the applicant knowingly withheld a material reference during prosecution. The legal standard requires both materiality and intent to deceive, but “I didn’t know I had to disclose that” is not a defence when the reference was sitting in a foreign office action file.
| Risk | Severity | What it means for your practice |
| Inequitable conduct | CRITICAL | The entire patent rendered unenforceable, not just affected claims. Cannot be asserted, licensed, or defended, regardless of the invention’s novelty. |
| Infectious unenforceability | CRITICAL | In continuation families, a finding in the parent can propagate and place the entire portfolio at risk under the infectious unenforceability doctrine. |
| Malpractice liability | CRITICAL | Counsel who failed to maintain an adequate IDS process faces direct exposure when a client’s patent is challenged on inequitable conduct grounds. |
| Fee penalties | ELEVATED | Late filings after USPTO prosecution milestones trigger entirely avoidable fees. Proper docketing eliminates this cost completely. |
| Case in point: McKesson Information Solutions, Inc. v. Bridge Medical, Inc., 487 F.3d 897 (Fed. Cir. 2007) The Federal Circuit reaffirmed that a patent may be rendered unenforceable for inequitable conduct if an applicant fails to disclose material information, including office actions and prior art — from one co-pending application to another during prosecution. The court made clear that counsel was not entitled to assume the examiner would recall decisions from related applications: affirmative written disclosure was required. References from a related application were never carried forward. The patent was held unenforceable. | ||
Our IP services: precision support across the full prosecution lifecycle
Draft n Craft works as an extension of your prosecution team, not a vendor you have to manage. We handle the operational complexity of IDS compliance and IP docketing so your attorneys can focus on strategy, claims, and client relationships.
- IDS preparation & filing — Full preparation of IDS packages, form PTO/SB/08, NPL formatting, citation verification — filed on time, every time. Every trigger. No exceptions.
- Foreign office action monitoring — We track EPO, JPO, and CNIPA prosecution timelines and ensure material examination results are cross-filed into your US applications before the obligation window closes.
- IP docketing & paralegal services — Complete deadline tracking and prosecution monitoring across your entire patent portfolio, US, PCT, and foreign. We maintain the docket so your team never misses a trigger.
- Continuation & RCE support — Every continuation, divisional, and RCE triggers a fresh IDS obligation. We manage the carryover, update, and filing process systematically, no gaps, no carry-over errors.
- IDS compliance audits — Portfolio-level review to identify gaps, missed disclosures, and corrective supplemental IDS filings, before they become legal exposure in litigation or IPR proceedings.
- Grant & post-grant services — From allowance through post-grant proceedings: supplemental IDS filings, patent proofreading, and fee maintenance to keep granted patents secure and enforceable.
Who we work with
Our clients include IP law firms of all sizes, in-house IP departments at multinational corporations, pharma and life sciences companies, startups building their first patent portfolio, and research institutions protecting their innovations. We’ve served clients across 45+ US states and 10+ countries, including the UK, Australia, Canada, EU, India, China, and Taiwan.
What they share in common: they needed an outsourced IP partner who operates with the same precision and accountability as an in-house team. That’s exactly what we deliver.
Ready to protect your IP portfolio?
Draft n Craft has prepared over 10,000 IDS filings for law firms, in-house IP teams, and patent practitioners across the US and globally. Let us handle the complexity so your clients’ patents and your practice stay protected.
info@draftncraft.com · +1-646-367-6958