What is Legal Breadth (LB)?
Legal Breadth (LB) is an indicator that reflects the scope of legal protection of a patent. It is calculated based on the number of words in the shortest independent claim, where fewer words indicate broader protection. Adding more words to a patent claim decreases its scope of potential application and
thus the legal breadth of a claim. Finally, counts are normalized by year, country of jurisdiction and main
IPC/CPC.
How is Legal Breadth interpreted?
| /High/ A high LB value (small number of words used in the shortest claim) indicates broad claims and thus a wide legal scope of the patented technology. |
| /Low/ A low LB value (high number of words used in the shortest claim) indicates narrow claims and thus a restricted legal scope of the patented technology. |
High Legal Breadth (LB)
A high LB value indicates that the shortest independent claim contains fewer words.
- Reflects broad claims
- Indicates a wide legal scope of the patented technology
Low Legal Breadth (LB)
A low LB value indicates that the shortest independent claim contains more words.
- Reflects narrow claims
- Indicates a restricted legal scope of the patented technology
How is Legal Breadth used in the platform?
Legal Breadth is one of the IPlytics patent valuation indicators and is calculated at the patent family level. When aggregated across patent families, it contributes to the overall characterization of the legal scope of a portfolio in analytical views such as the Indicators tile.