Launch of the CPC and the new version of the IPC

The European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have launched Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), a global classification system for patent documents. This common, international system has been developed thanks to a joint effort made by the two organisations and serves for technical documents, especially patent publications. It will be used by the two offices during the patent granting process.

The start
Since October 2010, the EPO and the USPTO have been working on the CPC, which includes about 250,000 entries based on the European Classification System (ECLA) and includes the best practices of both offices. The CPC makes it possible for both patent examiners and users to make searches in the same collections of documents. This will make their searches not only more efficient but will also improve the efficiency of shared initiatives by reducing unnecessary duplication of work.

More information on the CPC can be found on the Cooperative Patent Classification website.

New version of the IPC
In addition, on 1 January the new version 2013.01 of the IPC was adopted. The most relevant changes are in the following sub-classes:

The Spanish-language version can be accessed at IPC website. The official versions in English and French are available from the WIPO website.

Details of the changes made to the previous version (2012.01) can be consulted under the “Compilation” tab. PDF documents of the IPC, at sub-class level, can be downloaded in Spanish from the classification website.