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International Patent Classification (IPC)
The technical content of patent documents is classified in accordance with the International Patent Classification (IPC).
The publishing office assigns an IPC symbol valid at the time of publication of the patent application.
The complete IPC
(current 7th edition) can be found on the web site of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO
).
The classification symbol is made up of a letter denoting the IPC section (eg B), followed by a number (two digits) denoting the IPC class (eg B60). Optionally, the classification can be followed by a sequence of a letter denoting the IPC subclass (eg B60N), a number (variable, 1-3 digits) denoting the IPC main group (eg B60N2), a forward slash "/", and a number (variable, 1-3 digits) denoting the IPC subgroup (eg B60N2/28).
Note: IPC symbols printed with a blank after the fourth letter or digit must be entered in the search field in esp@cenet® without any blanks.
The best results can be obtained by combining the IPC/ECLA
and abstract
fields.
It is important to use the IPC as widely possible, using not only subgroups but also classes, subclasses, etc.
You can enter up to four classes, the default operator being AND.
For more information on patent searching, see the following pages:
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