PCIPI Working Group on Search Information

Geneva, June 24, 1998
Press Updates UPD/1998/23

From June 8 to 19, the twenty-first session of the PCIPI Working Group on Search Information was held at the headquarters of WIPO in Geneva. The Working Group is composed of member States of WIPO and a number of inter-governmental organizations.

The principal task of this Working Group is to carry out revision of the International Patent Classification (IPC). The IPC is used world-wide to classify patent documents (published patent applications and granted patents). It was established under the Strasbourg Agreement Concerning the International Patent Classification of 1971. This agreement is administered by WIPO.

At the present time, industrial property offices of nearly 90 States, four regional offices and the Secretariat of WIPO use the IPC. The appropriate IPC symbols are indicated on each patent document, of which about 1,000,000 were issued each year in the last 10 years. The IPC symbols are allotted by the national or regional industrial property office that publishes the patent document. The symbols make it easy to classify patent documents and later to retrieve them by field of technology.

The Classification is indispensable for the retrieval of patent documents in the search for "prior art." Such retrieval is needed for patent-issuing authorities, potential inventors, research and development organizations, and others concerned with the application or development of technology.

In order to keep the IPC up to date with advances in technology, it is continuously revised and a new edition is published every five years. The current (sixth) edition has been in force since January 1, 1995. The PCIPI Working Group on Search Information started its preparatory work for the new (seventh) edition of the IPC in 1994 and finalized it at the current session. The Working Group also approved a revised text of the Guide to the IPC representing a code of principles and rules applied in the Classification.

The amendments to the IPC agreed upon by the Working Group will be forwarded to the IPC Committee of Experts which, at its session in November 1998, will finally adopt all the changes for the seventh edition of the IPC. This new edition will enter into force on January 1, 2000.

At the session in question, the International Bureau made a demonstration of the Internet version of the sixth edition of the IPC recently loaded on the WIPO Web site, which is accessible to any user free-of-charge and provides hypertext links making possible easy navigation in the hierarchical structure of the Classification and between its authentic English and French versions. The Internet publication of the IPC will be especially useful for the general public and small industrial property offices not having direct access to the paper or CD-ROM publications of the IPC.

For more information, please contact: Mr. Mikhail Makarov, Head, International Patent Classification Section, WIPO: