By Donald Zuhn --
USPTO and EPO Announce Formal Launch
of Cooperative Patent Classification System
On January 2, both the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office and European Patent Office announced the formal
launch of the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) system, a global
classification system for patent documents (see
USPTO press release and EPO press
release). In September, the two offices has announced the
publication of an advanced version of the CPC scheme and some final CPC
definitions ahead of the last week's official launch (see "USPTO and EPO Announce Launch of Cooperative Patent
Classification System").
The CPC is a detailed
classification system that includes approximately 250,000 classification
symbols based on the International Patent Classification (IPC), which is
administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The new classification system, which
incorporates the best classification practices of both the U.S. and European
systems, will enable efficient prior art searches to be conducted and is also
expected to enhance efficiency by supporting work-sharing initiatives designed
to reduce unnecessary work duplication.
The USPTO noted that the CPC "will be used by the USPTO and more
than 45 patent offices -- a user community totaling more than 20,000 patent
examiners -- all sharing the same classifications helping to establish the CPC
as an international standard."
Building on the CPC launch
package, which included the complete CPC scheme,
59 of the 625 final CPC definitions, and a CPC-to-IPC concordance,
the USPTO and EPO provided updates to the CPC definitions on November 9 and December
17, 2012.
USPTO Establishes Permanent
PPH Program with TIPO
Last month, the U.S. Patent
and Trademark Office announced
that it was establishing a permanent Patent Prosecution Highway (PPH) program
with the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office (TIPO), effective as of September
1, 2012. The establishment of the permanent
PPH program comes one year after the USPTO announced the establishment of a PPH
pilot program between the USPTO, as the designated representative of the
American Institute in Taiwan (AIT), and the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office
(TIPO), as the designated representative of the Taipei Economic and Cultural
Representative Office (TECRO) in the United States (see "USPTO News Briefs," September 1, 2011).
As with other PPH programs,
the USPTO-TIPO PPH permits an applicant having an application whose claims have
been allowed in one of the offices to fast track the examination of an
application in the other office, such that the latter application is examined
out of turn. In particular, an applicant
receiving a ruling from either the USPTO or TIPO that at least one claim in an
application is patentable may request that the other office fast track the
examination of corresponding claims in the corresponding application in that
office. Information regarding the full
implementation of the USPTO-TIPO PPH can be found here.
USPTO Selects Site of Dallas-Fort
Worth Satellite Office
In a press release issued in November, the U.S.
Patent and Trademark Office announced that it had selected the Terminal Annex
Federal Building as the site of the Dallas-Fort Worth satellite office. The Dallas-Fort Worth satellite office is one
of three satellite offices the USPTO plans to open in addition to the satellite
office that was opened in Detroit in July (see
"USPTO to Open Three More Satellite Offices"). In opening the additional satellite offices,
the USPTO is exercising its authority under to § 23 of the Leahy-Smith America
Invents Act to establish three or more satellite offices in the United States
by September 16, 2014, subject to available resources. The USPTO noted that the Terminal Annex
Federal Building is located along the southern edge of Dealey Plaza, which was
the location of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy on November 22,
1963 (see image at right; the
Terminal Annex Federal Building is the building in the lower right hand
corner). Last August, the USPTO
announced that the Denver
satellite office would be located in the Byron G. Rogers Federal Building.
Image of Dealey Plaza in Dallas, TX from 1995 or 1996 (above) by Father of Nehrams2020, from the Wikipedia Commons under the Creative Commons
Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported
license.
Comments