History
The origin of the International Patent Classification is the "International Classification" created under the European Convention on the International Classification of Patents for Invention. The first edition of the International Classification became effective on September 1, 1968. It consisted of eight sections, 103 classes, and 594 subclasses, as compared with the IPC eighth edition consisting of eight sections, 129 classes, 639 subclasses, 7,314 main groups, and 61,397 subgroups.
In 1967, BIRPI, the predecessor of the World Intellectual Property Organization, and the Council of Europe began negotiations aiming to "internationalize" the International Classification. Their efforts bore the Strasbourg Agreement in 1971.
For the first seven editions of the IPC, the classification was updated approximately every five years. With the eighth edition, which came into force January 1, 2006, the system was revised and the classification was divided into "core" and "advanced" levels. The core level is to be updated on a three-yearly basis. The advanced level provides more detailed classification and is updated more frequently (probably every three months).
International Patent classification edition 8 is designed to allow patent offices the choice between a simpler to implement but more general classification using the core classifications, or a more detailed but more complex to maintain advanced classification.
This division into core and advanced levels was reversed with the 2011 version of IPC.
Read more about this topic: International Patent Classification
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