Recently, one of the revised proposals concerning plant pesticide in the International Patent Classification (IPC) presented by China has been approved by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This is the very first proposal that China, as a member state of WIPO, proposed a revised agenda with respect to international patent affairs and received approval. The achievement suggests that China is gradually transforming from a passive receiver and executor of international regulations of intellectual property (IP) to an active participant and policy maker. Moreover, China has begun to exert her power and dynamic functions on in the area of intellectual property in the international community.   

 

The 15th meeting of the IPC revision working group of WIPO was held in Geneva from May 29 to June 2, 2006. At the meeting, the revision proposal C432 concerning detailed classification of IPC “A01N65/00” in relation to plant pesticide presented by the State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) of the People’s Republic of China was approved and became SIPO’s first WIPO-approved revision proposal in the IPC area. The international patent classification is the standard patent classification used internationally. In recent years, WIPO has been revolutionizing the classification of international patents and divided the IPC into the basic version and the advanced version. The former is for the uses of small-size industrial IP offices and the general public. The latter is for the uses industrial IP offices that have to abide by the rules of PCT limitation of the minimum number of documents, large-size industrial IP offices and the general public. The advanced version includes all IPC items that are also incorporated in the basic version. The revised proposal that was approved at the 15th meeting in Geneva included 25 classifications, all of which belong to the IPC basic version but will also be adopted by the advanced version. 

 

IPC has long been dominated by the U.S., Japan and Europe in terms of the presentation of revised proposals. It took two years for China from the time that the proposal was officially presented to the formal approval. Initially, the U.S., Japan and Europe expressed their doubts about the necessity of China’s revised proposal. After numerous negotiations and talks by SIPO with patents offices in Germany, Britain, the US, Japan, Europe, Sweden and WIPO, the revised proposal was finally approved. 

 

China is distinctive in terms of traditional knowledge and patent documents about plant pesticide accounts for a large proportion of the patent documents. As of March 31, 2006, the number of plant pesticide patent documents around the globe is 5,112, of which 1,096 documents are in China. As such and in consideration of our long-history in the plant pesticide, China urgently needed more detailed classifications of “A01N65/00” that is in relation to plant pesticide in IPC in order to meet the requirement of patent documents searches in the said area. For this reason, the professionals of SIPO came up with the initial thought of requesting more detailed classifications of “A01N65/00” plant pesticide in 2002. At the 12 meeting of WIPO IPC working group held in November 2004, SIPO officially submitted the “IPC- A01N65/00(plant pesticide) revision request”, which was later approved by WIPO and listed as one of the projects on the agenda. SIPO was appointed as the project management organization.

2006-06-29

2006-06-29