Adobe Acrobat and the trusty old rubber stamp

One of the things I like best about Acrobat is the ability to apply electronic stamps to documents.  These allow you to mark a document in much the same manner as you would with a rubber stamp — “sign here,” “draft,” “confidential,” etc.  The new version of Acrobat Professional makes it even easier to add and organize custom stamps.  I have already created a group of patent prosecution stamps and organized them into a category.  When viewing a .pdf document, I can apply any of these stamps simply by choosing the “Patent Prosecution” category and picking the stamp from a set of handy previews in a menu.  So simple.

I designed the two stamps in this post for utility applications.  The DRAFT stamp, appropriately enough, is intended for applications sent to clients for review.  It can easily be modified to include a version number and revision history, if necessary.

The AS FILED stamp is intended to clearly mark the version that was filed with the patent office.  Ever look at two versions of an application and wonder which the Examiner has?  Have your clients?  I avoid this situation by using a file naming system.  While this works for me, it does not give any visual indicator on the document itself and it conveys no information to people not familiar with my naming conventions.  The new stamp, which I use in conjunction with the naming conventions, eliminates these problems.

Clients, by the way, love them.  A simple technology solution that is incredibly effective.