Monday, November 7, 2011

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...

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