Patent Family Tracing

Patent Family Tracing

Traces patent citation networks and priority chains in both directions (forward citations, backward citations, priority links) until the search space saturates.

Stages

1. Seed Identification

• Accept seed patents from calling strategy
• Validate patent numbers and retrieve basic metadata
• Establish initial frontier set

2. Priority Chain Tracing

• For each seed, trace priority/continuation chain to find all family members
• Identify provisional applications, continuations, divisionals, CIPs
• Record priority dates and filing jurisdictions

3. Citation Expansion (Forward)

• Find all patents that cite the seed/family patents
• Assess relevance of citing patents to the target technology
• Add relevant citations to the frontier

4. Citation Expansion (Backward)

• Find all patents cited by the seed/family patents
• Trace backward to foundational prior art
• Add relevant references to the frontier

5. Saturation Check

• Use saturation-detection SOP to determine if expansion has converged
• Convergence criteria: <5% new relevant patents per iteration
• If not saturated, return to Stage 3 with expanded frontier

Available SOPs

Execution Guidance

• Run priority chain tracing first — this gives complete family coverage before citation expansion
• Forward citations are more likely to reveal recent developments
• Backward citations reveal foundational prior art
• Limit citation depth to 3 generations unless strategy requires more
• Deduplicate by patent family (same priority) not by individual publication

Yield Report

Report to calling strategy after each execution:

• New patent families discovered this iteration
• Total frontier size
• Saturation percentage
• Depth reached (citation generations)