USPTO and European Patent Office Team Up on Classification System

Daniel Sineway

On October 22, 2010, the U.S. Patent & Trademark office (USPTO) and European Patent Office (EPO) announced that the two agencies plan to create a common patent classification system for classifying patents and other prior art according to common subject matter definitions.  The common classification scheme will be primarily based on the EPO’s standard, but will include best practices of both agencies.  The goal of the unified classification system is to help the two agencies begin to eliminate unnecessary duplication of effort in examining patent applications, thereby promoting more efficient examinations and enhancing examination quality.  Overall, a unified system should enable patent examiners to rely on the searches and examinations of other offices, and thus hopefully reduce patent backlog and subjectivity in patent examination.

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