Abstract
International Patent Classification (IPC) was created for the purpose of sorting inventions and their documents into technical fields covering all areas of technology. Introduced in 1968, the IPC is used by all IP offices worldwide. IPC can be effective for searching patents worldwide under the condition that “each IP office provide IPC with the same quality.” The authors conducted an international comparison on IPCs among IP offices, by analyzing patents by JPO, USPTO, EPO, CNIPA, and KIPO, which account for about 80% of the worldwide patent publications. The result shows especially that searching Chinese patents by IPC is difficult for the searchers/examiners in the United States and Japan, and vice versa. In the case that each IP office classifies patents by its own standard apart from other IP offices’ standards, the important feature is lost in the process of classification of technical idea described in the patent. It means that even if IP offices share the common international language (like IPC) that everyone deeply comprehends, the key feature of the invention may be lost in translation into the common language. Moreover, in discussion part, a search method without patent classifications has been considered for the future plan.
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