The International Patent Classification (IPC) is a hierarchical patent classification system used in over 100 countries to classify the content of
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...
s in a uniform manner. It was created under the Strasbourg Agreement (1971), one of a number of treaties administered by the
(WIPO). The classification is updated on a regular basis by a Committee of Experts, consisting of representatives of the Contracting States of that Agreement with observers from other organisations, such as the
European Patent Office
The European Patent Office (EPO) is one of the two organs of the European Patent Organisation (EPOrg), the other being the Administrative Council. The EPO acts as executive body for the organisation
.
Classification
Patent publications from all of the Contracting States (and also most others) are each assigned at least one classification symbol indicating the subject to which the invention relates and may also be assigned further classification symbols and indexing codes to give further details of the contents.
Each classification symbol is of the form A01B 1/00 (which represents "hand tools"). The first letter represents the "section" consisting of a letter from A ("Human Necessities") to H ("Electricity"). Combined with a two digit number, it represents the "class" (class A01 represents "Agriculture; forestry; animal husbandry; trapping; fishing"). The final letter makes up the "subclass" (subclass A01B represents "Soil working in agriculture or forestry; parts, details, or accessories of agricultural machines or implements, in general"). The subclass is followed by a one-to-three-digit "group" number, an
oblique stroke
The slash is the oblique slanting line punctuation mark . Also known as a stroke, a solidus or several other historical or technical names including oblique and virgule. Once used to mark periods and commas, the slash is now used to represen ...
and a number of at least two digits representing a "main group" or "subgroup". A
patent examiner A patent examiner (or, historically, a patent clerk) is an employee, usually a civil servant with a scientific or engineering background, working at a patent office. Major employers of patent examiners are the European Patent Office (EPO), the Un ...
assigns classification symbols to patent application or other document in accordance with classification rules, and generally at the most detailed level which is applicable to its content.
: A: Human Necessities
: B: Performing Operations, Transporting
: C: Chemistry, Metallurgy
: D: Textiles, Paper
: E: Fixed Constructions
: F: Mechanical Engineering, Lighting, Heating, Weapons
: G: Physics
: H: Electricity
History
The origin of the International Patent Classification is the "International Classification" created under the European Convention on the International Classification of Patents for Invention. The first edition of the International Classification became effective on September 1, 1968.Guide to IPC, Version 2012 /ref> It consisted of eight sections, 103 classes, and 594 subclasses, as compared with the IPC eighth edition consisting of eight sections, 129 classes, 639 subclasses, 7,314 main groups, and 61,397 subgroups.
In 1967, BIRPI, WIPO's predecessor, and the Council of Europe began negotiations aiming to "internationalize" the International Classification. Their efforts bore the Strasbourg Agreement in 1971.
For the first seven editions of the IPC, the classification was updated approximately every five years. With the eighth edition, which came into force January 1, 2006, the system was revised and the classification was divided into "core" and "advanced" levels. The core level was to be updated on a three-yearly basis. The advanced level provided more detailed classification and was updated more frequently (probably every three months).FAQ on IPC Reform. Hosted by the esp@cenet website, http://www.epo.org/patents/patent-information/ipc-reform/faq.html#16. (Internet Archive version dated October 12, 2007).
International Patent classification edition 8 was designed to allow patent offices the choice between a simpler to implement but more general classification using the core classifications, or a more detailed but more complex to maintain advanced classification.Guide to the International Patent Classification (Eighth Edition) WIPO Publication No 560E.5/8, , paragraphs 29-33 (Internet Archive version dated October 14, 2007).
This division into core and advanced levels was reversed with the 2011 version of IPC, IPC2011.01. The IPC is under continual revision, with new editions coming into force on January 1 of every year. The current version is IPC2021.01.
See also
*
Cooperative Patent Classification
The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a patent classification system, which has been jointly developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).Espacenet
* European Classification system (ECLA)
*
F-term
In theoretical physics, one often analyzes theories with supersymmetry in which F-terms play an important role. In four dimensions, the minimal N=1 supersymmetry may be written using a superspace. This superspace involves four extra fermionic coo ...