IPC Reform (IPC v8) and Questel

The standard for classifying patent documents

• Overview
• The Questel IPC 8 Design
• IPC 8 Attributes
• Questel National Bibliographic and Full text Databases
• PlusPat and FamPat
• Incorporating IPC 8 in Your Searches
• SDIs and Stored Searches
• Additional Information Regarding IPC 8

Overview

The new Reformed IPC, also known as IPC 8, will be the standard for classifying patent documents starting January 1st 2006. This new standard was designed to be a living classification index to improve search and retrieval precision and to be overall a more efficient search tool.

There will be two levels to the new IPC:

• The Core Level will be revised every 3 years and will consist of a stable subset of approximately 20,000 terms. The Core Level classes will be used mainly by the smaller patent offices although they will be very important for comprehensive searching and retrieval.
• The Advance Level will be very detailed, similar to ECLA, and will be revised every three months to account for new technologies. From what we know, most major patent offices will be using the Advance Level indexing.

Included in the Advance and Core Level codes will be attribute notations, containing information such as the version date, classification level, source and generating country. Important aspects to the attributes are the Inventive and Non-Inventive notations. Attributes are discussed in detail later in this document.

The new IPC will impact every patent database on Questel and it is very important to understand how we will implement this across all our databases so that they can be used to get the best retrieval possible.

While the new IPC 8 will greatly enhance retrieval, this does not replace the use of existing patent office classifications such as ECLA, US PCL and FI / F-term (coming soon to PlusPat and FamPat), since these are the primary classification schemes used by these offices.

The Questel IPC 8 Design

We will be adding six new fields in FamPat and PlusPat, and to our national bibliographic and national full text files. Producer sponsored files, such as DWPI, IFI and CAS, will have similar but not always the same design. However we will standardize as much as possible to allow for consistent searching across all patent files on Questel.

The new IPC fields are:

All of these fields, as well as the historical IC fields, such as ICM, ICS, IC1, IC2, ICA, will be searchable using the IC search qualifier.

ICM (Main) and ICS (Secondary) will no longer be available for ongoing IPC classification since the EPO and other patent offices have deemed them as irrelevant.

The format of the new IPC 8 will be the same as the previous IPC formats used in our databases.

IPC 8 Attributes

Attribute notations will contain information such as the version date, classification level, source and generating country. All attributes are searchable in either the new IPC fields as well as in the IC index using the S proximity operator and can be searched with or without the IPC codes. Attributes are:

If the office does not provide the Core Level code for each IPC 8 Advanced Level code, then we will add the Core Level code using the WIPO table. In these cases when we add the Core Level code and attributes, QO will be listed as the Generating Office.

Note: Not all attributes will be available for all codes and we will output what are delivered to us by the patent offices.

This is an example of IPC 8, including mocked-up attributes:

G02C-005/16 [2006-03 A I B H EP] ; G02C-005/20 [2007-03 A I R H US]

Questel National Bibliographic and Full text Databases

The following rules will be in effect for the national bibliographic and full text databases. These databases include: EPAPAT, EPBPAT, PCTFULL, USPAT, USAPPS, DEFULL, FRFULL, GBFULL, EPPATENT, WOPATENT and FRPATENT.

1. The IPC codes in these databases will not be updated or revised and will reflect the code as applied on the original publication.
2. IC field and index will remain defined as it is now in these databases and can be used to search IPC 8.
3. Historic IPC fields; such as ICM, ICS, IC1, IC2, ICA will not be used but will still appear for records published before 1 January 2006. Records published after this date will not contain these fields.
4. If the office does not provide the Core Level code for each IPC 8 Advanced Level code, then we will add the Core Level code using the WIPO table.

1. Existing record in EPAPAT

2. Mocked-up IPC 8 record in EPAPAT showing Advanced Inventive

PlusPat and FamPat

PlusPat

1. The same fields as described above will be assigned to PlusPat records independent of the stages.
2. Existing fields that are assigned at the stage level, e.g. IC, IC2, IC3, IC4, etc. will contain the IPC code on the day the stage first appeared in PlusPat. Note that this field will be composed of IPC v1-7 before 1 January 2006 and IPC 8 after. In this regard, these fields will be semi-historical in nature.
3. The new IPC fields will contain the most current version of the class assigned to the patent.
4. If the EPO does not send the corresponding Core Level codes for Advanced Level Codes, then we will add the Core Level code using the WIPO table. From what we know today, the EPO will send both Advance and Core level codes in their data.

2. PlusPat records after 1 January 2006

FamPat

1. The same fields as described above for PlusPat will be added in FamPat.
2. All the new IPC 8 codes and attributes are searchable within the patent family using either IC or new IPC 8 qualifiers and all the codes will display in the IC field.

Example: This is a mocked-up example showing the STDR format and the new comprehensive IC field

Incorporating IPC 8 in Your Searches

The new IPCs and its implementation on Questel offers complete search flexibility depending on your search requirements. For very precise searching Advance Level fields should be used, and for comprehensive searching it is recommended that both the Advance and Core Level fields be used.

Two very important aspects must be considered when using the new IPC:

1. Prior art and ongoing searches should be conducted in FamPat, PlusPat and DWPI since these files are retrospectively indexed and will be revised with the new IPCs.
2. The national bibliographic and full text databases (previously listed) will only incorporate the new IPC after 1 January 2006, so IPC v1-7 should be used for backfile searching.

Searchers should consult the IPC 8 classification codes on the WIPO site to validate that the most accurate classification is being used.

Example: Here is a sample taken from the WIPO IPC 8 classification website:

The IPC 8 classifications on the WIPO site clearly distinguishes which are the Advanced and Core level IPCs and these can be used to either narrow or expand the search.

Precise Retrieval
For precise retrieval of patents covering spectacles incorporating side-members which are reinforced and adjustable, the codes G02C-005/18 and G02C-005/20 can be searched in the ICAI, ICAN, ICAA and IC fields. If only interested in the Advance Level Inventive then only the ICAI field should be used.

As with the previous versions of IPC, these can be searched in Questel by:

Comprehensive Retrieval
For comprehensive retrieval both the Advance and Core Levels should be searched. So in this case include the Core Level code G02C-005/14 in the search. The Core Level codes can be searched using ICCI, ICCN, ICCA or the IC qualifier.

The precise and comprehensive search could be performed in independent search statements, then either ORed or ANDed together depending on the search requirements.

SDIs and Stored Searches

The more immediate concern for users is how SDI alerts and stored searches will be impacted by IPC 8.

New SDI Alerts and stored searches
With SDI alerts or stored searches (which can be manually run) created after 1 January 2006, the Core Level IPC should be used instead of the Advance Level. This is because the Advance Level will be revised every three months which may directly impact the quality of SDI retrieval. If Advance Level is used, then the SDI alert (or stored search) must be methodically reviewed for revisions to obtain quality results. Since the Core Level will be revised every few years, this may be a more stable IPC to run for alerts.

Existing SDI Alerts and stored searches
Existing SDIs and stored searches on Questel patent databases using the IC field may still run and may even retrieve accurate results. It is highly recommended, however, that the WIPO IPC 8 classification table be consulted and the strategy be modified to use the IPCs that will give the best results.

SDIs running on any of the pre-IPC 8 fields, ICM, ICS, IC1, IC2, ICA will not retrieve any results when the IPC 8 is implemented because these fields will no longer be used for new data. SDIs and stored searches must be changed to search either the IC field or the new IPC 8 fields – again the Core Level is recommended.

We will automatically change existing SDIs alerts using the ICM, ICS, IC1, IC2, ICA fields to the IC field when IPC 8 is implemented in a particular database.