Patent numbers are assigned by the issuing patent office upon grant or publication of a patent or published application.
Application numbers and priority application numbers can also be searched.
It depends upon the database, patent office, and country of origin on how to format the search. Generally, do NOT include commas, but you may need to include country codes.
Patents cite other patents as prior art or as members in their application. Most databases allow you to search for all patents that have cited to your patent number.
Look for CITED patents as a search option.
