Principles of IPC Reform
In 1999, the IPC Committee of Experts recommended to launch the reform of the IPC in order to adapt the Classification to the electronic environment, to increase its efficiency for the retrieval of patent information and to facilitate its use for small and medium-sized industrial property offices and the general public. This recommendation was subsequently endorsed by the Assembly of the IPC Union.
Development of modern methods of electronic access and retrieval of information required accommodation of the patent classification to the electronic age. In order to ensure its continuing efficient and effective use, substantial changes to the IPC itself and to methods of its revision and application were needed.
IPC reform has been carried out by the Committee of Experts and its Working Groups since 1999. Close cooperation of industrial property offices was necessary for achieving successful results of the reform. Guidance in conducting the reform was provided by the Strategic Plan for the Development of the IPC approved by the Committee of Experts in 2000.
The basic period of IPC reform has been completed in 2005. The eighth edition of the IPC (IPC-2006) entered into force on January 1, 2006. It already represents the reformed IPC and includes many new features elaborated in the course of the reform. The most important of them are described below.
One of the important features of the reformed IPC is its two-level structure which will better satisfy differing needs of small, medium-sized and large industrial property offices and the general public. The two-level system consists of a core and an advanced level.
The core level contains approximately 18,000 entries at high hierarchical levels (classes, subclasses, main groups and subgroups). It is a relatively stable part of the IPC. Revision amendments to the core level will be made in three year revision cycles when necessitated by technological progress.
The advanced level represents a further elaboration of the core level, i.e., it includes the core level and additional subgroups. Initially, it includes approximately 70,000 entries but its size will rapidly grow since revision amendments to the advanced level will be continuously made through an accelerated procedure under the supervision of a special subcommittee. A new IPC revision procedure is set forth in the document "Revision Policy and Revision Procedure for the Reformed IPC" approved by the Committee of Experts.
Although any industrial property office may choose which level to employ for classifying its published patent documents [PDF], namely, the core or the advanced level of the reformed IPC, it is intended that the relatively simple core level will be used for classifying and searching patent documents belonging to small and medium-sized national patent collections, while the more complex advanced level will be used for classifying and searching patent documents belonging to large collections. In particular, classification at the advanced level will cover patent documents included in the PCT Minimum Documentation.
The publication of the IPC in paper form will be continued, it will, however, be restricted to the core level, in view of its stability during the three-year revision cycles. The Internet publication contains the complete text of the Classification including the core and the advanced levels and becomes the principal form of publication of the IPC. The Internet version incorporates the electronic layer, including various electronic data illustrating IPC entries or explaining them more in detail. This electronic data enhances understanding and facilitates the use of the IPC for industrial property offices and the general public.
Classification definitions for selected subclasses of the IPC are already available in the electronic layer of the eighth edition of the IPC. They are intended to provide more detailed explanations of the contents of IPC entries than the official text of the IPC. During further development of the IPC, classification definitions will be elaborated for all of the more than 600 subclasses of the Classification. More than 3,000 structural chemical formulae are available for viewing in the electronic layer of the eighth edition. Their role are to illustrate chemical areas of the IPC by providing a visual graphic representation of the subject matter of the chemical areas. The electronic layer also includes facilities for displaying main groups of the IPC in the standardized order.
One of the objectives of IPC reform was to provide possibilities for performing patent searches with the use of the current version of the IPC only and to eliminate the need to rely on superseded IPC editions. This objective will be achieved by reclassification of patent collections according to revision changes of the IPC.
Access to the worldwide collection of patent documentation will be provided through the Master Classification Database (MCD). It represents a bibliographic database storing all bibliographic elements, including IPC symbols, of patent documents at various publication levels. The database also contains family information. The documents included in the MCD will be classified according to the current version of the core level of the IPC and the continuously updated advanced level. During revision of classification schemes, the work distribution for offices participating in the reclassification of relevant patent files will be done by automatic means, using the database. Documents included in the PCT Minimum Documentation will be reclassified by members of the special subcommittee for the supervision of the advanced level of the IPC and some other large industrial property offices. In order to alleviate the workload of reclassification for other offices, their documents having patent family members in the PCT Minimum Documentation will be reclassified by automatic propagation of the reclassification data from the PCT Minimum Documentation.
Delivery of classification and reclassification data to the MCD should be done by industrial property offices with the use of the new version of WIPO Standard ST. 8 [PDF] ("Standard Recording of International Patent Classification (IPC) Symbols on Machine-Readable Records") which entered into force on January 1, 2006.
The access to the Master Classification Database will be possible in several ways, for example, via the Esp@cenet service of the EPO. The Esp@cenet will use the IPC data present in the MCD. This data will also be copied in the EPODOC database of the EPO. Finally, industrial property offices which will need a high use of the MCD may install a copy of the database in-house and receive updates of the database on a regular basis. Details relating to the creation, maintenance and functioning of the MCD are described in the document "Concept of Operations for the Reformed IPC (CONOPS)."
Although basic principles and rules of classification have not changed in the course of IPC reform, some important modifications to these principles and rules have been introduced, which will influence the classification practice of industrial property offices. One of the most important modifications is concerned with a new definition of invention information. According to the new definition, invention information is technical information in the total disclosure of a patent document (for example, description, drawings, claims) that represents an addition to the state of the art. Invention information is determined in the context of the state of the art, using guidance provided by the claims of the patent documents, with due regard given to the description and the drawings. This new definition will contribute to a more complete classification of invention information in patent documents.
Many particular rules of the IPC were amended or further specified. This concerns, for example, presentation of classification symbols on the front page of patent documents, priority rules in the IPC, principles of multiple classification, use of hybrid systems and classification procedures for patent documents at different publication levels. A large number of amendments to principles and rules of the Classification made it necessary to completely review and redraft the Guide to the IPC [PDF] representing the only official handbook on classification. In addition to the Guide, documents "Guidelines for Determining Subject Matter to be Classified" [PDF] [DOC] and "Guidelines for Determining where to Classify Patent Documents" [PDF ] [DOC] have been elaborated. A number of special documents, relating to revision and maintenance of the IPC, and creation of electronic data, have been elaborated in the course of the IPC reform. They are available on the IPC electronic forum.
The eighth edition of the IPC (reformed IPC) was published, in the printed form (core level) and on the Internet, and entered into force on January 1, 2006. Publication of the eighth edition of the IPC marked the realization of the basic period of IPC reform.
If you have any questions on IPC reform, please contact us by e-mail at ipc.mail@wipo.int.
