Zhihuiya Patent Family Explorer

This skill guides you on how to query patent family information via the Zhihuiya (PatSnap) platform, helping users discover Simple Family, INPADOC Family, and PatSnap Family members for given patents.

Core Concepts

A patent family is a collection of patent documents that are related to each other by priority claims. Different family definitions capture different scopes of relatedness:

• Simple Family: Patents sharing exactly the same set of priority applications. These are typically direct equivalents filed in different countries.
• INPADOC Family: A broader grouping defined by the European Patent Office that links patents sharing at least one common priority, even indirectly.
• PatSnap Family: A proprietary family definition by PatSnap (Zhihuiya) that extends INPADOC logic with additional heuristics to capture continuations, divisionals, and other related filings.

Each patent in the response carries its own simpleFamilyId, inpadocFamilyId, and patsnapFamilyId, which serve as unique identifiers for the family group under each definition.

Parameter Guide

You must supply at least one of the two lookup parameters. If both are provided, patent ID takes precedence.