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A patent family is "a set of patents taken in various countries to protect a single invention (when a first application in a country – the priority – is then extended to other offices)."〔Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Economic Analysis and Statistics Division, ''OECD science, technology and industry scoreboard: towards a knowledge-based economy'', OECD Publishing, 2001, ISBN 92-64-18648-4, ISBN 978-92-64-18648-4, page 60.〕 In other words, a patent family is "the same invention disclosed by a common inventor(s) and patented in more than one country."〔United States Patent and Trademark Office web site, (Glossary ). Consulted on April 27, 2009.〕 Patent families can be regarded as a "fortuitous by-product of the concept of priorities for patent applications". == Definitions == 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. Those are not the only possible definitions of a patent family, however. Another definition, which is broader than the "simple patent family" definition but narrower than the "extended patent family" definition, is to consider that "()ll the documents having at least one common priority belong to the same patent family."〔 In general, "()atent families are () defined by databases, not by national or international laws, and family members for a particular invention can vary from database to database."〔 cited in 〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Patent family」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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