INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB – Two Different Perspectives on Inventions
STNext’s INPADOC databases are based on EPO’s INPADOC data collection and enhanced by FIZ Karlsruhe’s value-add information, quality checks, data standardizations and corrections. INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB are companion files and contain the same information but differ in database structure. Therefore, INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB offer diverse application focusses.
Both files, INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB, facilitate a wide variety of information tasks and are suitable for different types of patent searches like state of the art, patentability, freedom to operate or validity searches. For the appropriate database choice, the focal point of an enquiry is crucial. INPADOCDB is suitable if the request is related to IP rights issued by individual patent authorities. For invention-related inquiries, INPAFAMDB is the right choice.
| INPADOCDB: IP rights issued by individual patent authorities | INPAFAMDB: Invention-related inquiries |
| Application-based statistics | Invention-based statistics |
| Searches for individual national or regional applications or granted IP rights | Searches for technologies |
| Searches for legal status of a specific application | Searches for patent assignees |
| Searches for applications with a certain legal status | Searches for inventors |
| Analysis of inventions, e.g., patent portfolio | |
| Multi-file searches in patent family files, e.g., INPAFAMDB, CAplus and Derwent World Patents Index |
INPADOCDB
All publications which are published throughout the patent process of a regional or national intellectual property organization form, together with the respective legal status information, one database record in INPADOCDB. Pre-grant, grant, post-grant documents and legal status events during the entire patent life cycle are merged in a single database entry.
Four publications (PI) have the same application number (AI) and the same priority numbers (PRAI). This domestic family shares the same set of legal events (only selected displayed).
INPAFAMDB
In INPAFAMDB a set of patents from various national or regional patent administrations which aims for protection of a single invention in several countries form a single record. For each member within a patent family INPAFAMDB features the same content as INPADOCDB – all publications plus all legal status events of the entire patent life cycle. In other words, for an INPAFAMDB patent family record the INPADOCDB database records of all patent family members are compiled.
Six publications with their respective application numbers and legal status events of all domestic families which belong to the international INPADOC patent family. All publications share the same priority number.
Definition of Patent Family
The term “patent family” can be defined in different ways, depending on the relationship between a patent document and its priority/priorities according to the Paris Convention. If an application is filed in several countries, different previous applications with varying claims can be listed as priorities in these national or regional applications.
STNext defines the extended international patent family for INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB as follows: All documents that are directly or indirectly related to each other by one or more identical priorities belong to the same international patent family. Each national or regional application represents one member of the international patent family. The EPO has another definition for a so-called “Simple Family.” In a simple family all applications must have the same set of active priorities.
As a result, patents with different scopes of protection can be part of an extended international patent family. Accordingly, documents 1-5 below represent one family with three priorities. The publications 2 and 3 share the same set of active priorities and are therefore members of an EPO simple family.
INPADOCDB/INPAFAMDB documents contain data keys which consist of the priority number (PRN), the type of priority (PRK), and the date of priority (PRD). These keys are utilized to build the families. When new documents are included in INPADOCDB/INPAFAMDB the database is checked for documents which are consistent in PRN, PRK and PRD. In INPAFAMDB the Accession Number (/AN) is assigned to these documents. The INPAFAMDB family numbers corresponds to the Family Number (/FN) in INPADOCDB. For a single national application, the Accession Number (/AN) in INPADOCDB is the ID which corresponds to the Document Number (/DN) from INPAFAMDB.
Accession numbers in both databases can change due to corrections or updates of patent relevant numbers and codes. It is therefore not recommended to use these accession numbers for searching or further processing of retrieved data.
The EPO is issuing IDs for each publication and the national applications. The publication ID is available in the search field /PUBID and remains unchanged over time. The application ID is indexed in the field /DOCID and might change due to correction. In the EPOs simple family (search field /SFN) all applications must have the same set of active priorities.
Family Displays
INPADOCDB and INPAFAMDB offers various formats to display patent families.
Condensed Family Formats
All condensed family formats provide the publication, application and priority information in different compositions plus a family statistic (FSTAT) field with the counts for priority numbers, applications, publications, EPO simple families, countries (patent offices), and the number of legal events.
| Display Format | Description |
| CFAM2 | A table with the publication, application, and priority information plus the Patent Status Indicator (STI). The table of CFAM2 is integrated in the INPAFAMDB default display BRIEF and – for both databases – in the full family displays IFAM and IFAM2 and the legal status display FAMLS. |
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| Display Format | Description |
| CFAM | A table with the publication information plus the Status Indicator (STI) and the Status Established Date (STED). |
| Display Format | Description |
| FAM | A table of publication (PI), application (AI) and priority information (PRAI) (relations PI - AI and AI - PRAI). |
| Display Format | Description |
| FAM2 | A table of publication (PI), application (AI) and priority information (PRAI) (relations PI - AI and PI - PRAI). |
| Display Format | Description |
| EFAM | As FAM, but the priority information is the header information for the AI - PI part of the table. |
| Display Format | Description |
| SFAM | Display of the EPO 'simple patent family' (SFN) within the INPADOC patent family table. |
Full Family Formats
The full family displays include for each family member the full bibliographic information like in INPADOCDB and/or the legal status information.
| Display Format | Description |
| FFAM | Full bibliography, classifications and legal status information for each authority. Country specific displays like FFAM.US or FFAM.EP are available; all country codes are possible |
| MFAM | FFAM plus abstracts; with country specific display as well |
| IFAM | CFAM2 plus MFAM indented with text labels, ordered alphabetically by patent offices with the respective country code and name as header |
| IFAM2 | IFAM without abstract and classification |
| LFAM | Publication information (PI), the status indicator (STI) plus a list of all legal entries, sorted by legal status date (LSD) |
| FAMLS | CFAM2 plus a list of all legal status entries, sorted by legal status date (LSD) |
De-Duplicated Formats in INPAFAMDB
Single records in INPAFAMDB provide bibliographic and legal status information of all publications referring to one INPADOC family. For search results based on a technology search (keywords and classifications, patent assignees, inventors) it is recommended to use the formats with de-duplicated content as described in the table below. The display BRIEF is the default format in INPAFAMDB.
| Display Format | Description |
| BRIEF | Title in English, standardized inventors and patents assignees, classifications, abstract in English, and the patent information table (CFAM2-format). The English abstract is either from EP, US, WO, GB, another English equivalent abstract or one original language abstract. |
| BIB | Title in all available languages, standardized inventors and patent assignees, publication, application and priority information, family statistics |
| STD | BIB plus classifications |
| ALL | STD plus abstract |
| IBIB | BIB indented with text labels |
| IALL | ALL indented with text labels |
| ALLO | Title in all available languages including those in non-Latin characters, standardized inventors and patent assignees, inventors and patent assignees in non-Latin characters, application and priority information, publication and application numbers in original, non-standardized format |
Family Formats in INPADOCDB
Single records in INPADOCDB provide bibliographic and legal status information of all publications referring to a national family (one application). In order to display all members of the national family, the selected display fields or a specific display has to be combined with the qualifier .M. The display BIB.M is the default format in INPADOCDB. Display fields like TI, PA or PI can be combined with the qualifier .F to display the content for all family members.
All condensed and full family formats available in INPAFAMDB can be used in INPADOCDB as well.