Use of the IPC in the Industry
Gerold Frers
Arndt Mecke
IPC WORKSHOP WIPO, GENEVA, 2008-02-04
Agenda
 Usage of IPC in the industry / Benefits
 Consequences of the IPC reform
 Impact of changes in IPC for alerts
 Implication of incorrect assigned IPC codes
 Examples
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Usage of IPC in the industry
 General business and portfolio decisions
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Buying a business because of technological synergies
Buying a business because of needed technologies
Identifying the Licensee of IPRs for needed technologies
Identifying internal business that does not match the overall portfolio (anymore)
 General technology decisions
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Is a technology already covered by competitors or are there still "white spots“
Are competitors going for a special technology
 Single IPR related decisions
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Identifying IPRs that can be sold or licensed-out
 R&D related applications
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Profile based surveillance of competitors or technologies
Freedom of operation searches
Prior-art searches
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Benefits of the IPC
 Reduced need of complex and error prone keyword searches
• Example: Main Group B61C 3/00 can replace keywords like:
“electric locomotive”, “electric railcar”, “locomotive with electric
propulsion …” in a search
 Hierarchical classification scheme applied by the skilled
professionals of the patent offices.
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Consequences of the IPC reform
 Reduced comparability of statistical analyses performed before the
reform and today as well as those carried out in the future.
 Slightly easier prior-art searches because of the now dynamic
classification scheme.
 Loss of instruments that were used for years in every day work: e.g.
Main / Secondary Classes
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Impact IPC reform on alert services
 Much larger effort is necessary to keep automated profiles up-todate due to the regular changes in the classification
 Because of the use of correlation tables by other classification
systems those systems are more sensitive for inconsistencies and
delays in the new IPC process
• Example: US Class, Derwent Manual Codes, F-Terms(?)
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Implication of incorrect assigned or initially missing IPC codes
 Any document that has an incorrect assigned or an initially missing
IPC code is lost as information source for alert services
 Depending on your database provider whole sets of documents can
be unavailable, if the IPC is incorrect or missing
• Example: WO 2006 074123
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Complete change of scope between A2 and A3 from
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B03B
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to G06K
(SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR IMAGE LIFT WITH ENHANCED IMAGE CAPTURE )
(SEPARATING SOLID MATERIALS USING LIQUIDS OR USING PNEUMATIC TABLES OR JIGS)
(RECOGNITION OF DATA; PRESENTATION OF DATA; RECORD CARRIERS; HANDLING RECORD CARRIERS)
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P4 Separating, Mixing
P41 Crushing: centrifuging, separating
solids
(B02, B03, B04).
P42 Spraying, atomising (B05).
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Conclusion and requirement
 Solve the problem with missing IPC
 Early information about Reclassification
 More cooperation between the offices in
the standardization processes
 Improvement of the usability of the available online tools
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PDG activities and working groups
 IMPACT (meetings twice a year, next in Basel April 2008)
 SACEPO/PDI
 EPOPIC
 In all this groups / meetings we are discussing the facts
and working on solutions
 Thank you for your attention
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