What are the types of patent families?

Patent family is also called patent family. Person refers to a group of patent documents that have been applied for, published or approved for many times in different countries or international patent organizations and have the same or basically the same content as the patent family and have the same priority.

According to the relevant definitions in WIPO's Handbook of Industrial Property Information and Documentation, patent families can be divided into the following types:

1, simple patent family:

It means that all patents in a group of patents take the same or several patent applications of the same * * * as the priority;

2. Complex patent family:

Refers to a group of patents in which at least one patent application in the patent family has priority;

3, expand the patent family:

It means that each patent in a group of patents and at least one other patent in the group have at least one patent application as priority;

4. Domestic patent families:

Refers to a group of patent documents published by a country for reasons such as supplement, follow-up, partial follow-up, divisional application, etc., but does not include patent documents published in different stages of examination and approval of the same patent application;

5, imitation patent family:

Also known as intelligent patent family, technology patent family or artificial patent family. That is, the content is basically the same, but it is not based on one or more patent applications with the same * * *, but a group of patent documents published by different countries through intelligent investigation and classification.