Patent family
The term patent family is a jargon-like term for a group of patents and patent applications and possibly also utility models that formally claim a common seniority or have this by virtue of law or other regulations.
overview
Patents are regularly applied for in many countries around the world. This usually leads to several patents or patent applications. Often the procedure is that the application is first made in the domestic jurisdiction ("first application", e.g. at the German Patent and Trademark Office) and after a certain time in other countries ("subsequent applications"). The subsequent registrations formally claim the priority of the first registration. The various patent laws and regulations allow this claim as long as the claiming later application is identical in content to the claimed earlier one. In this way (and also in other ways - see below "Types of affiliation"), groups of applications (and later patents) are created which - apart from translation issues - should at least essentially have the same content and usually also have the same owner, but are pending in different countries, were mostly registered at different times, but claim the same seniority. Even within a country, certain mechanisms can result in several registrations with the same core content and the same priority.
Such connected patents and applications are called together a "patent family". Small families have two or three "members". But there are also large ones with dozens and sometimes even over a hundred family members. In the jargon, the members of a patent family are sometimes referred to as "equivalents" because of their content-related agreement or similarity.
Empirically, members of a patent family will often have very similar descriptions. However, the patent claims can be or become significantly different, as they are or have been processed in the respective examination procedures by different examiners in different patent offices and also have to meet different legal requirements.
meaning
No legal meaning
In the legal sense, the term "patent family" is meaningless. It is neither defined nor used in the various laws and international treaties on patent law. In contrast, those mechanisms that lead to family formation are legally defined, see below.
Since the term “patent family” is not legally standardized, there is no binding definition for it. In practical use, the understanding of the conditions under which exactly a “family relationship” is assumed between two property rights is different. In a broad understanding, all documents that are directly or indirectly linked by a priority document belong to a patent family. This includes family relationships similar to "Schwippschwägerin" and "Stepfather". More narrowly, an understanding is that all documents that have at least one common priority belong to the same patent family. Sometimes only those documents that have exactly the same priority or combination of priorities are considered to belong to a patent family.
Factual importance for research
In fact, many patent registers and patent databases use the legal relationships between applications, which lead to family formation, to cross-index the associated patents and applications so that they can be found more easily. If you have found an interesting patent in one country, you can find corresponding patents in other countries on the basis of the family relationship, as long as the databases are correct and complete and the rights sought are (already) published. Many official databases provide the family members associated with a found publication at the push of a button. The registers of the patent offices are based on a broad definition of the term "patent family" in their cross-family indexing.
Factual importance for translations
If a patent publication is incomprehensible in one language (e.g. Japanese), one can search for family members who have been registered and published in an understandable language (e.g. English) in order to at least roughly grasp the content. However, this mechanism cannot be used for the legally accurate translation of patent specifications. Different patents of a family have mostly gone through different processes and are therefore formulated differently, at least in their patent claims .
Types of Affiliation
There are various legal mechanisms that lead to "family formation". What they have in common is that there is at least one "source" registration and one or more "target" registrations. The respective registers note the claimed relationship and use it for cross-referencing.
priority
A later application ("subsequent application") can claim the filing date of a previously filed patent application ("first application"). Both registrations are then considered family members. This can also happen several times, for example by a US, JP, EP and CN application claiming the filing date of a German application. All are then family members.
"Phases" from an international patent application
An international patent application under the patent cooperation agreement (" PCT application ") can result in many national applications, so-called "phases", e.g. B. Patent applications in Europe, China, USA and Japan. All "phases" including the PCT application itself are then considered to be members of a patent family.
National shares of a European patent
When granted, a European patent application breaks down into many national patents, e.g. B. one each for Germany, France, England and Italy. All are considered family members.
division
Many patent systems allow one patent application to be split into two applications. Examples of this are the German and European patent granting procedures. One or more divisional applications can be split from a pending application ("parent application"). Divisional registrations can be split again yourself. All such existing and emerging registrations are family members.
Junction
Under German law, a utility model can be derived from a pending patent application under certain conditions. Both are considered family members.
USA: Continuation, Continuation in part ("CIP")
In US law there are "contionuation" registrations that are roughly equivalent to the above. Divisional registration. Again, all registrations involved are family members.
example
First filing in DE on January 1, 2000 ⇒ (identical!) Subsequent filings e.g. in FR, US or in the collective procedure for Europe EPC or as an international PCT application possible up to January 1, 2001 (+ possibly holiday rules), without the status the technology, the z. B. becomes known on June 1, 2000, which opposes subsequent registrations. All of these documents belong to the same patent family for all definitions.
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Not to be confused with the term "equivalence" in infringement law, see under protection (patent) >> equivalence
- ↑ DEPATISnet of the DPMA
- ↑ Espacenet of the EPO