Abstract: A method for analyzing patent families. The method comprises: receiving a patent publication number; retrieving a family data set for the patent publication number, where the family data set includes a plurality of family member data sets, where each family member data set is related to the patent publication number and where each family member data set includes a publication number and country; storing the family data set; and graphically displaying a relationship between two or more of the plurality of family member data sets in the family data set.

Abstract: A method for analyzing patent flow. The method comprises: receiving a company set including an entity name; retrieving assignment data for the entity name, where the assignment data includes at least one assignment record having an assignor, an assignee, and a patent identifier associated with the assigner and the assignee, and where the entity name matches either the assignor or the assignee; storing the retrieved assignment data; and graphically displaying the relationship between each retrieved assignor and assignee in the assignment data.

Abstract: A method for analyzing cited references cited in a patent set comprising two or more patents. The method comprises: parsing each cited reference cited by each patent to determine a respective title of each respective cited reference; storing the title of each cited reference and the cited reference in a cited reference database, where the cited reference database links the respective title with the respective cited reference; counting the occurrence of each cited reference in the cited reference database; and displaying the title of the cited reference with the highest count.