Some odd patent priority structures

In order to build patent family and equivalences, it is necessary to Know the structure of priorities of the applications we are examining.
Obviously even if most of cases are quite linear, we have some tricky cases we may like to take count, when building patent families or projecting algorithms that calculate patent equivalences using priorities...

a) crossed priorities

These cases are a minority (let's say around 40.000 (out of 60.000.000) in 201009 ediction of patstat) but they risk to loop forever the algorithm.

TLS204
appln_id	prio_appl_id	seq_nr
5646058	1	10319466
5646058	2	10319467
10319466	1	10319467
10319467	1	10319466
TLS211
Appln_id	Publn_auth	Publn_nr
10319466	DE	2019744
10319467	DE	2019745
5646058	CH	565471

This case may be patched by COLLAPSING THE APPLN_IDs of crossing priorities in family calculation

 

 b) double level reference

This case refers to 1.064.888 APPLN_IDs

TLS204
appln_id	prio_appl_id	seq_nr
12160579	18104225	1
12160579	61634677	2
18104225	61634677	1
61634677	NO PRIOR
TLS211
61634677	EP	0525068
12160579	DE	9117296
61634677	US	51089890

If you look the patents in the example can't say if they are the same invention or not... on the other hand, most algorithms will keeps yellow in a separate family than pink and red.

 

c) multiple crossed priorities

These cases are very rare (let's say around 20 in 201009 patstat) but they risk to loop forever the algorithms

  

TLS204
appln_id	prio_appl_id	seq_nr
183518	'0020157247'	1
49897749	'0020157247'	1
53899283	49897749	1
20157247	49897749	1
20157247	'0053899283'	2

FR	1252170
US	3162182
US	3229456

TLS204
appln_id	prio_appl_id	seq_nr
55617908	'0057696936'	1
57727528	'0057696936'	1
57696936	'0055617908'	1
57696936	57727528	2

US	33766
US	4835819
US	4775555

d) Too many priorities

Last, care some application may have really a lot of priorities. In this example we have 478 priorities...