The patent office of China has pledged to introduce the same patent classification system already used in the EU, in a move to boost information exchange between the regions.
A memorandum of understanding, signed between the European Patent Office and the State Intellectual Property Office of the People’s Republic of China, commits China to begin using the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) from January 2014.
The CPC was launched at the beginning of 2013 as a joint partnership between the EPO and its US equivalent, the Patent and Trademark Office.
Under the CPC, the EU and the United States have committed to developing an internationally compatible classification system. This is meant to ensure scientific information contained in patents is more accessible to the general public, as well as allow lawyers to search previous patents more easily.
Under the memorandum of understanding, the Chinese patent office has committed to begin classifying under the CPC from next year, and is aiming to use it for all inventions by 2016.
The move marks an important step in the development of a universally compatible system, since China has ranked top of the global list of patent producers for the last two years, according to an EPO statement.
“It is a fantastic accomplishment in terms of harmonisation of our patent systems and the recognition of the CPC as a global system which can be used by many patent offices around the world,” said EPO president Benoît Battistelli. “Access to Chinese patent documentation will be dramatically improved.”