Patent Family - Simple and Extended Patent Families

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.

"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.

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