When inheriting documentation for an exception, the search currently transcends though ancestor methods that don't declare that exception either in the throws clause or a @throws tag.

# Unchecked Exception Case

public interface A {
    /**
     * @throws RuntimeException description
     */
    void m();
}

public interface B extends A {

    @Override void m();
}

public interface C extends B {
    /**
     * @throws RuntimeException {@inheritDoc}
     */
    @Override void m();
}

# Checked Exception Case

public interface A {

    /**
     * @throws Exception description
     * @throws java.io.IOException description
     */
    void m() throws Exception;
}

public interface B extends A {

    @Override
    void m() throws Exception;
}

public interface C extends B {

    /**
     * @throws java.io.IOException {@inheritDoc}
     */
    @Override
    void m() throws java.io.IOException;
}

If an exception is not mentioned either in the throws clause or a @throws tag, then as far as the exception documentation is concerned, that exception is irrelevant. Since exception documentation is not automatically inherited, the method in B effectively undocuments it. So when C looks for the exception documentation, it should find that B does not have it and cease the search, not continue the search in A.

Although classes and packages sometimes use informal blanket statements such as "Unless otherwise specified, passing a {@code null} argument to any method in this class will cause a {@link NullPointerException} to be thrown", such statements are out of scope of documentation inheritance.