|
Patent families
Generally speaking, a patent family is a group of patents which, like a family, are all related to each other, in this case by way of the priority or priorities of a particular patent document.
In esp@cenet® a patent family is defined as comprising all documents having exactly the same priority or combination of priorities.
An INPADOC patent family is defined as comprising all the documents having the same priority or combination of priorities. This includes all the patent documents resulting from a patent application submitted as a first filing with a patent office and from the same patent application filed within the priority year with a patent office in any other country.
Patent family members are automatically assigned the ECLA symbol of the document classified first in ECLA.
For more information on patent families, see the following articles in EPIDOS News:
If you have any questions, please e-mail the INPADOC Helpdesk in Vienna on inpadoc@epo.org
|
|