WIPO Standards: IP Information Users Can...

Country and organization codes provide a quick and easy way to uniquely identify the origin of an IP document and find out exactly which IP office issued it. These codes consist of two letters, all outlined in WIPO Standard ST.3. The codes are essential for searches by application number or country.

Users of patent documents and patent gazettes sometimes encounter difficulties in identifying bibliographic data elements found in such documents. INID (Internationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of [bibliographic] Data”) codes help users to quickly make sense of this data.

• Patent documents (ST.9)
• Trademark documents (ST.60)
• Industrial design documents (ST.80)

Using the recommended codes in WIPO Standard ST.16, you can distinguish different types of patent documents, such as patent applications, granted patents, utility models, etc., published by various IP offices in different languages.

The corresponding examples and IPO practices are described in Part 7.3 of the WIPO Handbook.

WIPO Standard ST.14 can help you to decode citations and better identify relevant prior art, by outlining a standardized way of presenting references contained in patent documents.

ST.14 can also assist you with understanding the different categories of citations found in search reports. They can provide a valuable indication of the potential patentability of an invention.

Application and publication numbers in intellectual property documents have a specific format and style. Knowing how this numbering works, makes the search and retrieval of relevant documents much easier.

• Applications for IP rights (ST.13)
• Published patent documents (ST.6)
• IPO practices (Part 7.2)

Knowledge of the codes used in announcement headings in official gazettes, as well as an understanding of the contents and layout of the various sections (ST.18, ST.63 and ST.81) helps you to find relevant information even without any particular knowledge of the language in which the gazette is published or without any specialized knowledge of the industrial property laws involved.

• Headings (ST.17)
• Contents and layout (ST.18, ST.63, ST.81)