Classification of international patents

The International Patent Classification (IPC) was created as a system for classifying and then researching patent documents. IPC’s main objective is to develop a quality reference tool. To achieve this, the International Patent Classification aims to ensure that each technical problem related to an invention can be classified in as much detail as possible, and that the classification of the invention as a whole is more important than the classification of each different part. The International Patent Classification (IPC) divides technology into 8 sections, 120 classes, 628 subclasses, and over 69,000 groups, covering all sectors of technology. The IPC currently has 54 members, and several other countries use the IPC or versions of it to classify their patents.