IPC Revision in Practice EPO8 February 2010

MCD revision life-cycle 3-6 months before entry into force Load Revision Concordance List (RCL) and Valid Symbols File (VSF) (received from WIPO) Create & distribute working lists to offices according to agreed algorithm for work-sharing Just prior to entry into force Store results from Offices (with auto deactivation) Automatic reclassification of one-to-one correspondences After entry into force Store any further results received Distribute residual working lists as required

Size of working lists so far (number of families)

General findings Revisions prior to 2009 IPC completeness in MCD ~ 80-95% Bigger revisions of 2009 and 2010 figure can be significantly less Systematic approach needed –for complete elimination of residual lists –i.e. ensure reclassification of all documents

Aspects of completeness Various causes for incompleteness: new documents arrive in MCD between creation of working lists and entry into force some offices (e.g. EPO) base reclassification on their own schemes –a different view of scope stored number formats can differ –documents can be missed family composition in MCD may differ from that in other offices –i.e. different interpretation of priority incorrect data stored in MCD

EPO approach Planned EPO method 2 years after a revision enters into force (ensure complete processing of the EPO working lists) select all documents from the WL not yet reclassified send to examiners for classification in ECLA when complete, generate new IPC symbols from ECLA (for all documents in the WL) de-activate all remaining IPC symbols to be revised

Proposed QCTF approach Proposal by the MCD Quality Control Task Force: (part of project QC002) After initial reclassification period –working lists "opened up" for all offices –offices can also reclassify families not in their own working lists after a fixed period –"automatic" reclassification of remaining documents –e.g. assign higher-level symbol

Possible solutions for the future real-time reclassification –move away from exchange of data in batches (xml files) time-consuming inhibits flow of information –Enable reclassification of individual families in real-time more dynamic involvement to greater completeness over a period of time WIKI ? –allow wider access to MCD data in some kind of WIKI environment may increase number of people actively reclassifying helps to fill gaps

IPC Revision in Practice Thank you for your attention