At the beginning of January of this year, the US Patent Office and the European Patent Office decided on a joint patent classification, the so-called CPC, i.e. the Corporative Patent Classification. A globally effective classification system for patents and other technical documents shall thereby be built up which is intended to be used by the US Patent Office and the European Patent Office in their patent granting procedures. Since January 1, 2013, the EPO has already been using this classification system and the US PTO plans to switch over to this system anytime soon.
Author: Dipl.-Ing. Josef Bockhorni (Patent Attorney), Update 1/2013
Patent Attorneys and Lawyers Bockhorni & Kollegen
Munich/ Germany
www.patguard.de
