The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC), which has now been in active use for half a year, has now begun the very interesting procedure of expanding geographically speaking. Particularly, both the SIPO (China) and the KIPO (Korea) have signed a so-called memorandum of understanding to initiate the adoption of the CPC.
For starters, both offices have agreed to start using the CPC for classifying some of their national patent documents, particularly those in the most active technological fields in the respective countries. The end goal naturally is that the use of the CPC in time should be extended to eventually cover all Chinese and Korean patent litterature.
To ensure proper training and transfer of knowledge regarding the CPC, the SIPO and the EPO have signed the one memorandum of understanding, while the KIPO and the USPTO have signed the other memorandum of understanding. Accordingly, the EPO will undertake the necessary training of the SIPO, while the USPTO will work with the KIPO.
Representatives of all four IP-offices express their expectation that this new cooperation will help improve future examination results by making patent litterature searches simpler and easier to perform.
Troels Peter Rørdam, European Patent Attorney & Certified Danish Patent Agent