Pages 448-451

INFORMATION FROM THE EPO

Annex to the European search report - Mention of patent family members relating to cited documents

1. As a service to applicants, each European search report will henceforth be provided with an Annex mentioning, within the limits specified below, family members relating to the patent documents cited in the search report, together with their publication dates.

2. The information contained in this Annex will reflect the contents of the European Patent Office EDP-file on the day of issue. The European Patent Office accepts no liability for the correctness of such information.

3. The following table provides an overview of the contents of the EDP-file based on the starting number and starting date from which various countries' patent documents were systematically incorporated into the file (before the indicated dates, patent family information was registered in a non-systematic way; in such a case the publication dates of patent family members mentioned in the Annex will be missing):

TABLE
EPO search documentation
EDP - file

4. The patent documents mentioned in the Annex are identified by the appropriate symbols as contained in WIPO Standards ST.3 (two-letter code for countries, organisations etc.) and ST.16 "Standard code for identification of different kinds of patent documents" published in the "WIPO Handbook on Patent Information and Documentation" (second series of loose-leaf pages), July 1982.

5. The following particulars with respect to these standards need special mention:

5.1 Successive publications of a patent document under the same publication number are mentioned as follows: two-letter country code, followed by the successive kind of document identification symbols, e.g. DE-A, B, C; the publication date mentioned in the Annex is that of the first publication as recorded in the EDP-file.

5.2 When a patent family contains two FR-M members the highest number refers to "a special patent for medicament" whereas the lowest number refers to the "certificate of addition to a special patent for medicament".

5.3 The kind of document identification of early DE patent documents may not be completely consistent with the present Standard ST.16.

5.4 The kind of document identification D, incidentally used for BE and LU documents, refers to a "bis" publication number.

6. A specimen Annex is shown below: -

Annex to the European Search Report on European Patent Application No...

This Annex lists the patent family members relating to the patent documents cited in the above-mentioned European search report. The members are as contained in the European Patent Office EDP file on ...

The European Patent Office is in no way liable for these particulars which are merely given for the purpose of information.