USPTO and KIPO To Expand CPC System
Announced on June 5, 2014, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO) took major steps towards expanding the classification of patent documents between the two offices using the Cooperative Patent Classification system (CPC). KIPO and the USPTO will work together to identify 50 additional CPC technical fields to classify KIPO’s patent documents, which will take effect in 2015.
Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Deputy Director of the USPTO Michelle Lee noted the importance of this achievement to improve examination quality and streamline the application process for the innovation community.
The European Patent Office and the USPTO first launched the CPC System on January 1, 2013, in an effort to develop a common, internationally compatible classification system for technical documents, in particular patent publications, which would be used by both offices in the patent granting process.
