Prerequisites
An OA analysis must be complete. See How to Run an OA Analysis.
Your role must allow patent notes. Ask your administrator if the Notes button does not appear. See Understanding User Roles and Permissions.
Steps
Open the Office Action Response page for your patent. Open the section you want to comment on, such as OA Summary or a rejection overview.
Select the text your note is about. A floating Note button appears beneath the selection.
Click Note. A composer opens with the prompt Enter Note.
Enter your note and click Add Note, or use Ctrl+Enter (Cmd+Enter on a Mac). The note stays attached to the text you selected.
Note: You can add selection notes on the analysis sections and on Read OA. The Final Response and Family Landscape sections do not accept them, and note-taking needs a desktop-sized screen.
Reviewing Notes
Click Notes in the top row of the page. The button shows how many notes exist. The panel has three tabs, Family, Case, and OA, which group notes by scope: the patent family, this patent, or this office action. Notes made from a selection land under OA.
Click a note to jump to the passage it refers to.
On large screens, notes also appear in a rail beside the content, next to the passage they belong to.
Before anyone has written a note, the panel reads No notes yet.
Adding a General Note
To leave a note without tying it to a passage, open the Notes panel and select the tab for the scope you want. Enter the text in the composer at the bottom of the panel and click Add Note.
Editing and Deleting Notes
Find your note in the Notes panel or in the rail.
Click the More options menu on the note.
Select Edit to change the text, then click Save. Select Delete to remove the note.
You can edit and delete only the notes you wrote yourself.
Related Articles
Office Action Response: AI-Powered Analysis and Strategy — Full overview of the OA response feature
Adding and Managing Patent Notes — Notes on the patent record itself
Best Practices: Office Action Response Workflow — Where team review fits in the workflow
Getting Started as a Patent Attorney — Onboarding guide for attorneys