Ready or Not, the Cooperative Patent Classification Has Arrived!

The patent world is about to get rocked by the upcoming 2013 roll-out of the new Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), which will replace both the current US patent classification system and the European patent classification system (ECLA).  This rollout is coming so quickly that after January 1^st, 2013, the CPC will completely replace ECLA, and all US published applications (also known as PG-Pubs, or A documents) will carry CPC classifications.

The US Patent and Trademark Office held an External User Day Event on July 10^th at the US Patent and Trademark Office in Alexandria, VA.  This event was an opportunity for the USPTO to listen to input and concerns from the patent search community regarding the CPC.  Upon invitation from the USPTO, Landon IP’s Director of Training and Special Projects, Jonathan Skovholt, served on the External User Panel to provide his analysis and comments on the effects of the planned transition.

How will these changes affect you? Read on to learn about the features of the new system, and Jonathan Skovholt’s analysis of its possible effects.

Update on Cooperative Patent Classification

It’s a little more than a year away, and it’s going to change patent information in a big way.

What is it?

It’s the Cooperative Patent Classification.

Last week the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) launched a homepage for the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC). This important milestone denotes progress on this giant and important project that we continue to be excited about.

Read along as we tell you the state of the CPC, why it’s important, and where we’re headed!

Update from PIUG 2011

Well my first full day at PIUG 2011 in Cincinnati, OH is done.  Although I spent a good part of it eating Graeter’s ice cream, the news I learned is so interesting that I just have to share it.

I have fresh-off-the-press updates about Dialog, Innography, WIPO PATENTSCOPE®, PatBase, Derwent World Patents Index and more, so read on!

Greatest (Patent) Hits: Most Popular Intellogist Blog Posts

Hello and welcome to everyone who found us through the EPO’s Patent Information News! We also welcome anyone else who has recently become a fan (or anyone who hasn’t yet gone through every post in our history!). This is a post where you’ll be able to quickly find links to some of our most popular and influential content.

Before we get down to that business, I also wanted to take this opportunity to ask you, the reader: What do you want us to post about? Do you want more coverage of up and coming or niche patent search tools? Do you want more articles comparing big patent search systems? Do you want articles on searching techniques and tips? Industry news? Big picture topics? We’d love to hear your input in the comments below, or contact us through the Intellogist website.

Without further ado, our most popular posts to date:

5 Reasons Why I’m Passionate About Patent Classification

Yesterday, while having a conversation about a related subject and without much prompting, I went on a several minute filibuster about the future of unified patent classification. The main prompt for this tangent was the latest news (hat tip to The Patent Librarian Blog for the short and sweet PR roundup) that indicates progress toward the new Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system between the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). However, I can’t attribute all of my enthusiasm to the latest news cycle–I had to admit that I’m just a nerd about patent classification. Let me explain why…

Top 5 Patent Search Resolutions for 2011

Around this time of year, it’s in vogue to promise yourself that you’ll be better this year. No more indulging in fatty diets, no more putting off that novel you want to write, and no more stagnating in your quest for world domination. Here on the Intellogist® Blog, we’ll let you handle those resolutions on your own. I will, however, give you my personal “Patent Search Resolutions for 2011.”

Putting aside some of the worst mistakes you can make in a patent search, let’s focus on resolutions that will put our best foot forward this year. By setting goals for your growth as a prior art searcher this year, you can make yourself more valuable to your company, law firm, or contractor.

From embracing the new to remembering the tried and true, stick around to find out what my top 5 resolutions are!

Unified Patent Classification One Step Closer to Reality

In an effort under the IP5 forum (Five IP Offices) banner, the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) have agreed to move forward on jointly developing a unified patent classification system based on the European Classification system (ECLA). The EPO was tasked with the project of Common Hybrid Classification as one of the ten IP5 projects. We previously covered the Common Search and Examination Support Tools project under the USPTO’s stewardship from the same forum. For more on what this joint patent classification system could mean, read on!

Green Patents in Derwent World Patents Index

Last week, we touched on green patent classification listings in our post about WIPO’s IPC Green Inventory. This week, we’ll look at a similar green patent classification listing: Derwent World Patents Index’s Green Technology Manual Codes. Come find out how these codes can help you find examples of green technology in your prior art search that keywords just aren’t turning up.

IPC Green Inventory

On September 16, 2010 WIPO launched the “IPC Green Inventory,” a new reference page dedicated to highlighting environmentally sound technologies within the IPC Classification. WIPO had this to say:

The tool, “IPC Green Inventory”, contains some 200 topics that are directly relevant to ESTs. Each topic is linked with the most relevant IPC symbols, chosen by experts from around the world.

Join us as we have a look at the site and explore its uses.

Learn Practical Patent Analysis: A Case Study (Installment 3)

Patent classifications are the original patent searching tools and remain among the most useful ways to categorize and index related prior art. Classifications, by definition, are groups of patent documents of similar subject matter. Several major patent classification systems exist, including US, IPC, ECLA, Japanese F-Index and F-Term, and DEKLA. In previous posts, we have discussed how patent searching by classification works and why it’s worthwhile. To check out those posts, see parts one and two of the “Classified Information” series.

Patent classifications can be vitally important in conducting a patent analysis project, and today we’ll show you how to utilize classification systems to pare down your pool of patent documents under review in addition to potentially finding new documents of interest.

Last time, in Learn Practical Patent Analysis: A Case Study (Installment 2), we discussed how manual de-duplication can reduce the redundant patent documents returned to us in our first full text search query. Barring that, we discussed how patent families could be used as a de-duplication tool to limit certain closely related patent applications from overwhelming the project: removing family duplicates in the data set is desirable because it reduces the amount of time needed to perform both manual and statistical analysis processes, and it focuses the analysis on the inventive concepts rather than the patent documents. To keep this case study concise and to the point I’ve chosen an automatic family de-duplication process to represent each patent family as one object. The analysis that follows is based on this method, but different patent analysis studies require different methods, a point not lost on our commenters last week.