U.S. patent family trees: Now a burgeoning forest

In patent practice, your organization needs to understand relationships that exist between multiple patents. That's true whether you are litigating a patent dispute, providing corporate patent advice, or managing a patent portfolio.

Hence the graphical view of a U.S. patent family tree, which allows you spot key relationships in seconds. Family tree graphical views are now available for more than 1 million U.S. patents.

To view an available patent family tree, click US Patent Family Tree on the Links tab of a U.S. patent or patent file history document. For example, retrieve U.S. Patent No. 6,368,304, and click US Patent Family Tree. A graphical view of the patent family tree is displayed, which contains 35 separate patents and an additional 19 patent applications. Imagine how long it would take to figure out this complex set of relationships!

Also recently added: The claims version comparator is now available for hundreds of thousands of patents whose full file history is not yet online (the redlined comparison between the original and final claims is displayed).

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