Patent classification system of the United States

of America and Europe

US Patent Classification
Although it is only applied to United States patent documents, the
US Patent Classification system is one of the most important
national patent classification systems. It is heavily used today,
because the economic importance of the US patent system makes
US patents a vital source for many prior art searches around the
world.
There is often no exact relationship between International
Patent Classification (IPC) and US marks since, unlike many other
national/regional use classification systems such asDEKLA(used
by the German Patent Office) andECLA(used by the European
Patent Office), the current US classification system has no
relationship to theInternational Patent Classification (IPC) system.
The US system was developed in 1836, whereas the IPC system
was first introduced over 100 years later, in 1968.

Advantages to Using the US

Patent Classification System
are:
1. It is perceived that US patent examiners classify patents with US
marks more accurately than they do with IPC marks.
This perception is widely considered to be valid because it is known that
US examiners classify using the US system first, and then often use a US
to IPC concordance tool to automatically generate IPC codes; as with any
machine-generated data, and because there is not an exact 1:1
relationship between US and IPC classifications, the IPC concordance tool
can sometimes produce IPC marks that are not optimal. Although US
examiners have the IPC class definitions at their disposal to check the
accuracy of the concordance, it is presumed that not all examiners take
the time to do so, since the USPTO is widely known to emphasize the
need for high case output, and many examiners often struggle to meet
production needs.

2. It was the perception in the field at one time that the US classification
system was revised much more frequently than the IPC system, and
consequently that it was quicker when adapting to changing and emerging
technologies.
Since the introduction of the IPC-Reform system in 2006, however, this
advantage may no longer be reality, as the IPC-advanced designations are
supposedly revised and updated every 3 months. Representatives of the
United States Patent and Trademark Office's (USPTO) Office of Patent
Classification were not able to give statistics on how often the US classes are
currently revised, but it is clear that the revisions take place on an as-needed
basis, with examiners or teams of examiners usually making the
recommendations for how the system should be revised. Once a revision is
proposed and approved by the Office of Patent Classification, the entire
backfile of US patents is re-classified in accordance with the revisions. The reclassification work is done manually by evaluating the content of the patent
claims; it is performed by a private company contracted by the USPTO.

TheEuropean Classification(ECLA) is a formerpatent

classificationsystem maintained by theEuropean Patent
Office(EPO). The ECLA classification system contains 134 000
subdivisions. It is mainly an extension of theInternational Patent
Classificationsystem, but sometimes modifies its titles and rules.
ECLA is used in connection with the indexing system ICO, which
serves to identify additional information and aspects that are not
covered by the ECLA schemes.ECLA has been replaced by
theCooperative Patent Classification(CPC) as of January 1, 2013.

Cooperative Patent Classification

TheCooperative Patent Classification(CPC) is apatent
classificationsystem, which has been jointly developed by theEuropean
Patent Office(EPO) and theUnited States Patent and Trademark
Office(USPTO). The CPC is substantially based on the previousEuropean
classification system(ECLA), which itself was a more specific and detailed
version of theInternational Patent Classification(IPC) system.

History
This

patent classification system is used by both the EPO and USPTO

since 1 January 2013. It has replaced the ECLA system and will replace
by 2015 the United States Patent Classification system (USPC) as the
official patent classification scheme of both the EPO and the USPTO.

On

4 June 2013, the Chinese State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO)

agreed with the EPO that as of January 2014, SIPO will start classifying
its newly published patent applications in some selected technical fields
into the CPC after receiving dedicated training from the EPO, and will
strive to classify its new patent applications according to the CPC in all
technical areas from January 2016. The corresponding classification data
is expected to be shared with the EPO.

On 5 June 2013, the United States Patent and Trademark

Office (USPTO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO)
announced the launch of a new pilot in which KIPO will classify some
of its patent documents using the Cooperative Patent Classification
(CPC) system. The pilot between KIPO and the USPTO is said to
mark a major first step towards KIPO classifying its patent collection
using the CPC.

On 26 September 2013, the EPO and the Russian Federal Service for
Intellectual Property (Rospatent) signed an agreement which concerns
the classification of patent documents. Under this agreement, as of
January 2016, Rospatent will start to classify into the CPC patent
documents currently being processed, and begin to classify the volume
of already published patent documentation as of 2017. The
corresponding classification data will be shared with the EPO.

Structure
Patent publications are each assigned at least one classification term indicating the subject to which
the invention relates and may also be assigned further classification and indexing terms to give
further details of the contents.
Each classification term consists of a symbol such as "A01B33/00" (which represents "tilling
implements with rotary driven tools"). The first letter is the "section symbol" consisting of a letter
from "A" ("Human Necessities") to "H" ("Electricity") or "Y" for emerging cross-sectional
technologies. This is followed by a two digit number to give a "class symbol" ("A01" represents
"Agriculture; forestry; animal husbandry; trapping; fishing"). The final letter makes up the
"subclass" (A01B represents "Soil working in agriculture or forestry, parts, details, or accessories of
agricultural machines or implements, in general"). The subclass is then followed by a 1 to 3 digit
"group" number, an oblique stroke and a number of at least two digits representing a "main group"
("00") or "subgroup". A patent examiner assigns a classification to the patent application or other
document at the most detailed level which is applicable to its contents.

A.

Human Necessities.

B.

Operations and Transport.

C.

Chemistry and Metallurgy.

D.

Textiles.

E.

Fixed Constructions.

F.

Mechanical Engineering.

G.

Physics.

H.

Electricity.

I.

Emerging Cross-Sectional Technologies.

This classification closely follows

theInternational Patent Classification.

An example of the CPC classification scheme in the

area of agriculture is shown: