Patent Knowledge Snippets

https://www.epo.org/en/searching-for-patents/helpful-resources/patent-knowledge-news/patent-knowledge-snippets-28

Patent Knowledge Snippets

17.06.2024

Publication of the EPO concordance table has been fully automated. The table is updated once a week and published for all users via the Bulk Data Distribution Service.

The concordance table contains all publication number formats and kind codes, all application number formats and kind codes and the WIPO ST.30 tags. It is drawn directly from the business rule engine used by the EPO's prior-art team to process the bibliographic data.

Patent publications do not only come with the familiar A-B, U-Y or D and S kind codes. In fact, almost the entire alphabet is used to cover all the different publications in the bibliographic datasets. When you come across a publication with an exotic kind code, you can use the concordance table to define it.

As an example, the concordance table section for Chile is shown below. Each kind code comes with a number format and a description of the type of document.

CC	Description	DOCDB KC	Number until 31-12-1999	Number as from 01-01-2000	Type of document
CL	Chile	A1	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"patent application"
		A2	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"Divisional patent application"
		A3	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"Revalidation patent application"
		B	n(nnnn)	n(nnnn)	"Granted patent"
		E1	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"Industrial drawing"
		P	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"Precautional patent application"
		S1	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"Industrial design application"
		S2	n(nnnn)	n(nnnn)	"Industrial design"
		U1	ccyy'0'nnnnn	ccyy'0'nnnnn	"Utility model application"
		Y	n(nnnn)	n(nnnn)	"Utility model"