Patent family

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A patent family is "a set of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention (when a first application in a country – the priority – is then extended to other offices)."[1] In other words, a patent family is "the same invention disclosed by a common inventor(s) and patented in more than one country."[2]

Simple and extended patent families

The International Patent Documentation Centre (INPADOC), the European Patent Office (EPO) and WIPO recognize the following definitions of simple and extended patent families:

Simple patent family: All patent documents have exactly the same priority date or combination of priority dates.[3]

"Extended" patent family: All patent documents are linked (directly or indirectly) via a priority document belonging to one patent family. The extended families allow for additional connectors to link other than strictly priority date. These include: domestic application numbers, countries that have not ratified the Paris Convention, or if the application was filed too late to claim priority.[4]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Economic Analysis and Statistics Division, OECD science, technology and industry scoreboard: towards a knowledge-based economy, OECD Publishing, 2001, ISBN 92-64-18648-4, ISBN 978-92-64-18648-4, page 60.
  2. ↑ United States Patent and Trademark Office web site, Glossary. Consulted on April 27, 2009.
  3. ↑ "Patent families > Definitions". European Patent Office. Retrieved October 17, 2012. 
  4. ↑ "Patent families > The "extended" (INPADOC) patent family". European Patent Office. Retrieved October 17, 2012. 

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