Following the approach by R. K\"otter and F. R. Kschischang, we study network
codes as families of k-dimensional linear subspaces of a vector space F_q^n, q
being a prime power and F_q the finite field with q elements. In particular,
following an idea in finite projective geometry, we introduce a class of
network codes which we call "partial spread codes". Partial spread codes
naturally generalize spread codes. In this paper we provide an easy description
of such codes in terms of matrices, discuss their maximality, and provide an
efficient decoding algorithm