Transcript The IPC development plan for the next five years IPC Workshop February 2013 Geneva Antonios Farassopoulos Director, International Classifications and Standards Division, WIPO.

The IPC development plan
for the next five years
IPC Workshop
February 2013
Geneva
Antonios Farassopoulos
Director, International Classifications and Standards Division, WIPO
Introduction
February 2009: simplification of IPC structure
Core and Advanced levels abolished
One yearly publication of the IPC
IPC revised by one unique technical body (IPC Revision WG)
2009: IP5 Offices established the Common Hybrid
Classification (CHC) project
October 2010: EPO and USPTO agreed to develop the
Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC)
January 2013: CPC enters in force
IPC Revision Program 2007-2013
Revision requests from IP5 CHC or Trilateral projects
automatically included in the IPC revision program and
treated with priority
Since IPC reform very few revision requests submitted
outside IP5. Systematically opposed by trilateral/IP5
After reform 2,500 new subdivisions were introduced into
the IPC (2007-2013) ~ 360 / year
This is less than half compared to the period before the
reform, although the global amount of patent
applications has exploded
A projects (origin Trilateral)
F projects (origin IP5)
IPC Revision Program (cont.)
The decrease of the IPC development is due to:
- Strong expectations from Trilateral / IP5 cooperation
- Cost of compulsory reclassification
- Suspension of revision during the reform
- Emergence of new searching tools
- Reduced investment in Classification by Offices
Some comments …
On the progress of the CHC project:
“… progress was very slow. In one year they managed only six
out of more than 600 areas – so it would have taken 100 years to
harmonize the existing schemes”
Benoît Batistelli
Concerning the development of the USPC
“The agency had de-invested in classification. We had stopped
keeping it up, and it was really a moribund situation….We knew
the WIPO system was better and more modern” David Kappos
Plan of Future Revision of the IPC
Pending A and F projects to be soon completed; risk that
the IPC will be frozen (moribund situation?)
Current environment:
Use of CPC by increasing number of European offices
Parallel viewer of the IPC, CPC and FI
Possibility of searching using the CPC and FI in global
databases
Is there a place for the IPC next to the CPC and FI?
Plan of Future Revision of the IPC (cont.)
The increase in the number of patent applications from
emerging countries and the shift of the interest of users
of patent information to their patent collections show the
areas where the IPC should be developed during the
next years
Prioritise technical areas:
- where there is a large amount of patent applications from
emerging countries with significant growth rate; and
- where the number of subgroups in the IPC is not sufficient for an
effective search
Areas to be Revised
Taking into account the classification symbols allotted to patent
applications published by CN, KR, BR, IN, RU, IL, MX, SE and FI
between 2004 and 2009 (Patent Collection)
The list of the main groups was ranked
- according to the average file size of the Patent Collection per
subgroup
- taking into account a growth rate higher than 0%
The first 96 IPC main groups were selected as the areas to be
revised during the next five years
The creation of new subdivisions should mainly be based on the
integration into the IPC of subdivisions from the existing local
classifications, i.e. CPC or FI
Examples
Reclassification
Since early 2012, a new reclassification tool was
implemented by the IB allowing a wider participation of
offices in the reclassification of completed projects
Phases of reclassification have been defined allowing
more offices to participate
Automatic reclassification of not reclassified documents
after a certain period (~ 5 years)
Reclassification (cont.)
CPC and FI offices will not be obligated to immediately
reclassify their complete back file when the other scheme
is used as a basis for revision.
During a certain period they will be able to keep the local
scheme to search their back file until the reclassification
is complete. This period could be flexible, based on the
number of documents that will need reclassification and
on the interest of the new scheme for that particular
office.
Initial feedback from Offices
Comments have been received from eight offices
Agreed in general with the basic idea of the proposal
Comments, recommendations and suggestions by
commenting offices have been reflected in this
presentation