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.