Washington/Munich, 25
October 2010 -- The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and
the European Patent Office (EPO) have agreed to jointly develop a patent
classification system on the basis of the European Classification system, ECLA.
The Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property
and Director of the USPTO, Mr David Kappos, and the President of the EPO, Mr Benoît Battistelli,
have agreed on the following joint statement:
"In view of the significant benefit to stakeholders of
developing a transparent and harmonized approach to a global classification
system for patent documents; in order to make the search process more
effective; and in the belief that cooperation between their two offices will
facilitate progress in undertaking classification harmonization projects under
the IP5 Common Hybrid Classification initiative, the USPTO and the EPO have
agreed together to work toward the formation of a partnership to explore the
development of a joint classification system based on the European
Classification system (ECLA) that will incorporate the best classification
practices of the two offices. This system would be aligned with the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) classification standards and the
International Patent Classification (IPC) structure. Accordingly, they have
initiated discussions on governance and operational aspects of such a
partnership.
The IP5 partner offices will be continually apprised of
progress at appropriate IP5 forums. Stakeholders will receive regular updates
on the substance and progress of classification partnership discussions between
the two offices."
This is a milestone achievement in the so-called five IP offices
(IP5) co-operation as it will allow the IP5 offices to move toward the Common
Hybrid Classification, one of the ten Foundation Projects of the five IP offices.
Further information on the Foundation Projects is available at www.fiveipoffices.org.
Contact
Rainer Osterwalder
Director Media Relations
European Patent Office
Erhardtstr. 27 | D-80469 Munich
Tel.: +49 (0)89 2399-1820
Fax: +49 (0)89 2399-2850
rosterwalder@epo.org
