Standards Links
Email updates
WIPO Standards – Latest developments in WIPO Standards, including updates from the Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS).
Sign upcross-reference two-letter country and organization codes
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.
understand bibliographic data
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.
identify different kinds of patent documents
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.
retrieve documents from citations and read search reports
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.
decode application/publication numbers
understand contents of official gazettes
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.