What is the purpose of an attorney docket number in a patent application?

An attorney docket number is used by law firms and companies to internally track and manage patent applications. While it’s not required by the USPTO, it can be included on application documents for reference. However, there are limitations:

• Must be limited to a maximum of 25 characters
• Spaces, slashes, and hyphens are not included in the entered docket number on the official filing receipt
• For docket numbers beginning with ‘CASE’ or ‘NAVY-CASE’, only characters after these prefixes are entered

The MPEP states: ‘Attorney docket numbers must be limited to a maximum of 25 characters to prevent truncation. The USPTO system data base allows a maximum of 25 characters for the attorney docket numbers.’ (MPEP 503)