Kind Codes
The kind code is an alpha-numeric suffix which gives information about the type of patent document. Generally, A kind codes are used for applications and B kind codes are used for issued/granted patents. The following summary of the principal kind codes may be useful. Further information can be found in the WIPO standard ST.16.
European patents
A1 application with search report
A2 application without search report
A3 search report
A4 supplementary search report (code on document is A3)
B1 issued patent
B2 issued patent after modification
US patents
A granted patent (to 2000 - replaced by B1 and B2 from 2001)
A1 application, first publication (from 2001)
A2 application, re-published (from 2001)
A9 corrected application (from 2001)
B1 granted patent, first publication (from 2001)
B2 granted patent, second publication (from 2001)
World (PCT) patents
A1 application with search report
A2 application without search report
A3 search report
B1 ammended claims
A8 modified first page
A9 corrected document
Japanese (JP) patents
A unexamined patent application
B examined patent application (to March 1996)
B1 granted patent without application (from May 1996)
B2 granted patent with application (from May 1996)
For PatentMatic, kind codes are optional and if none is specified the downloader will retrieve the most recent version of the patent that is available. It will only search for the kind codes above and the less common codes must be explicitly specified.
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