Patent US 6,311,176

The computer-aided official management system for developments described in patents and publications, which limits the official examination work for each development and substantially supports development management, permits data to be organized in a classification system with low redundancy. The management system contains a multiplicity of development systems (1) which emerge from one another by means of set operations via orientated relationships (4), in that each development system (1) is linked to a database (11), which contains, in particular, the definition of the development system (1) serving as a reference system (2), the formulation and status of each individual relationship (4) forming the development system (1), as well as unique indicators to further data. The development systems are uniquely defined as intersection sets in the data structure for linking previously separately considered reference systems via the relationships (4).