Patent families

Generally speaking, a patent family is a group of patents which, like the members of a family, are all related to each other, in this case by way of the priority or priorities of a particular patent document.

In Espacenet a patent family is defined as comprising all documents having exactly the same priority or combination of priorities (simple family). However, deeper analysis of certain patent documents might lead to specific priorities being declared as "non-active". In other words, these specific priorities are ignored in the building of simple families.

An INPADOC patent family is defined as comprising all the documents sharing directly or indirectly (e.g. via a third document) at least one priority. 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.

Simple patent family members are automatically assigned the ECLA symbol of the document classified first in ECLA.

Click here for more information on patent families.

If you have any questions, please contact Patent Data Services at patentdata@epo.org.