From December 2017, the IPI will classify Swiss patent documents (i.e. patent applications and patent specifications) according to the Cooperative Patent Classification System (CPC) in addition to the Classification according to the International Patent Classification (IPC). The first documents will be published on 15 December.

The CPC is the joint classification system of the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and is also used by many other patent offices. In comparison to the IPC, it allows for a more detailed classification of patent documents in specialised categories, which is beneficial for some patent searches.

Unlike IPC symbols, CPC symbols are not provided on Swiss patent documents and are only registered in patent databases such as on Espacenet. The CPC symbols assigned by the IPI will be listed in addition to the CPC symbols assigned by the EPO. The CPC symbols will currently not be shown in Swissreg, the IPI’s official organ of publication.