Understanding your patent search results

You have received a PDF overview of the search results as an attachment to a patent search report. This guide explains how to read that overview.

Table of contents

The overview begins with a table listing all the patent families identified in the search. The table has three columns: Publication numbers, Title, and Current Assignees (the current rights holders). The publication numbers link to the page in the PDF document containing more detailed information about the relevant patent family.

The pages following the table of contents provide detailed information about the patent families identified.

Bibliographic data

For each patent family, the first section shows the title and publication number of a representative family member. Below this are two columns of bibliographic data:

• Current assignee: the current holder of the patent rights.
• Inventors: the inventors.
• Priority data including date: the number and filing date of the priority application.
• IPC: International Patent Classification.
• CPC: Cooperative Patent Classification.

Patent families

In the second section, the members of the patent family are listed in blue under Family. A patent family is a group of related patent publications. These publications share the same priority application or applications and describe the same invention.

Next to each family member, you will find icons linking to:

1. A downloadable PDF of the original publication.
2. The record in the Orbit patent database.
3. The national or regional register, where available.
4. The figures from the patent publication in Mosaic.

Abstract and figure

The final section contains a short summary of the patent publication (the abstract) and a figure as shown on the front page of the original publication. This figure can help you make an initial assessment of the potential relevance of the patent family.