E

CWS/4/4
ORIGINAL: ENGLISH
DATE: MARCH 18, 2014

Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS)

Fourth Session
Geneva, May 12 to 16, 2014

QUESTIONNAIRE ON APPLICATION AND PRIORITY APPLICATION NUMBERING

SYSTEMS USED BY INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY OFFICES IN THE PAST (TASK
NO. 30)

Document prepared by the Secretariat

1. The Committee on WIPO Standards (CWS), at its first session, in October 2010, agreed
that, once the survey on current practices of application numbering is finalized, the ST.10/C
Task Force should prepare a questionnaire for conducting a new survey on application and
priority application numbers used by the industrial property offices (IPOs) in the past (see
paragraph 22 of document CWS/1/10). This decision was reaffirmed by the CWS at its third
session held in April 2013 (see paragraph 70 of document CWS/3/14).

2. In accordance with the above-mentioned request by the CWS, the ST.10/C Task Force
has prepared a draft questionnaire “Numbering of applications and priority applications – former
practices” for consideration and approval by the CWS at its fourth session. The draft
questionnaire is reproduced in the Annex to the present document.

3. The structure of the questionnaire is close to that of the survey “Numbering of applications
and priority applications – current practices” which was presented, as a draft, for information to
the CWS at its third session (see paragraph 4 of document CWS/3/10). In September 2013, it
was published in the WIPO Handbook on Industrial Property Information and Documentation
(WIPO Handbook) as Part 7.2.6.

4. In case that the questionnaire mentioned above is approved by the CWS, the International
Bureau should be requested to carry out the following actions:

• prepare and issue a circular inviting IPOs to complete the questionnaire;

 CWS/4/4
page 2

• prepare a survey report; and

• present the results of the survey for consideration by the CWS at its fifth session, in
order to approve its publication in Part 7 of the WIPO Handbook.

5. The CWS is invited to:

(a) consider and approve the

questionnaire “Numbering of
applications and priority applications –
former practices”, as reproduced in the
Annex to the present document; and

(b) consider and approve the

actions to be undertaken by the
Secretariat, as well as the timeframe,
as specified in paragraph 4, above.

[Annex follows]
 CWS/4/4
ANNEX

DRAFT QUESTIONNAIRE “NUMBERING OF APPLICATIONS AND PRIORITY

APPLICATIONS – FORMER PRACTICES”

INSTRUCTIONS REGARDING THE COMPLETION OF THIS QUESTIONNAIRE

1. The present survey complements the survey on application numbering systems
conducted in 2012 (see Parts 7.2.5 and 7.2.6 of the WIPO Handbook) and focuses on
numbering systems which were used by the IPOs in the past and which are no longer used.

2. During preparation of the response, it is recommended to refer to Part 7.2.6 of the WIPO
Handbook “Numbering of applications and priority applications – Current practice”
(http://www.wipo.int/export/sites/www/standards/en/pdf/07-02-06.pdf) as well as to the individual
responses to the survey provided by your Office/Organization (available at
http://web2.wipo.int/wipostad/en/surveys/survey-on-en/2012-0/ipo_responses_list).

3. The objective of the present survey is to collect information on numbering systems used
from 1989 to present, in the case that they are not presented in the above-mentioned Part 7.2.6
of the WIPO Handbook. Considering that the average “age” of citations is 6 years, this survey
combined with Part 7.2.6 would allow covering the majority of documents cited with respect to
valid patents.

4. If your Office/Organization used different numbering systems for different types of IPRs,
please submit separate responses for each numbering system used.

5. The respondent on behalf of the Office/Organization is invited to take the following steps:

(a) Check Part 7.2.6 of the WIPO Handbook and individual responses to the
survey of 2012;

(b) Determine how many application numbering systems are to be described, taking
into account

(i) different systems for different IPRs which were used in the year 1989,
(ii) any further change (after the year 1989) of any of the numbering systems
used in the Office/Organization,

(iii) current numbering systems, which are already described in the survey of
2012, should not be repeated.

See example below;

(c) Fill in a copy of the questionnaire for each numbering system. Basic information to
be provided is indicated in grey, please feel free to add more details if you consider it
convenient. Examples on how to fill in the questionnaire could be found in Part 7.2.6 of
the WIPO Handbook.

6. The list of IPRs to be included in the response is provided below for the respondent’s
convenience and to ensure the consistency of responses.

(a) Patents

(b) International applications filed under the PCT (PCT international phase)

(c) International patent applications under the PCT (PCT applications in the
national phase)
 CWS 4/4
Annex, page 2

(d) Provisional patent applications (Provisional patents)

(e) Innovation/simple/short-term/petty patent applications (Innovations)

(f) Plant patents

(g) Design patents

(h) SPCs (Supplementary Protection Certificates)

(i) Utility Models / Utility certificates

(j) International utility model applications under the PCT (PCT applications in the
national phase)

(k) Trademarks

(l) Industrial designs

(m) Layout-designs (topographies) of integrated circuits

(n) Other type (please specify)

Example
A given Office administers three types of IPRs: patents, trademarks and utility models.

The same numbering system is used for patents and utility models; this system was introduced
in the year 1950 and changed twice: in 1980 and in 2000. Information on the current system
(used since 2000) is already available in the survey “Numbering of applications and priority
applications – Current practice”. In this case the respondent is requested to submit only one
response on the system used from 1980 to 2000.

The system for numbering of trademark applications has been used since 1960 till present, but
the corresponding entry is missing in the 2012 survey. In this case the respondent is requested
to submit the response to the Secretariat, even though the numbering system is still in use.
This information will be reflected in Part 7.2.6.
 CWS 4/4
Annex, page 3

CONTACT DETAILS

Name
Please indicate the name of the person who filled in the questionnaire, in the format "First Name
LAST NAME”

Country/Organization
Please indicate the country name or the name of your Organization and the corresponding ST.3 code

E-mail address
Please indicate e-mail address of the person who filled in the questionnaire

QUESTIONNAIRE

Country/Organization Example of Example of priority Remarks

application number application number
ST.3 code + Country Application Priority application Used
name number(s) number(s) from to

For: list of IPRs

(see paragraph 6 in the
Instructions section above)
Description:
explanation of the example(s) provided above
Type of IPR:
positions, codes for each IPR, letters/digits/both
Year designation:
positions, calendar: Gregorian or other, year of filing or other
Serial number:
fixed/variable length of digits in positions
Code for internal use:
positions, available to public or not, what information is coded
Control number/Check digit:
positions, algorithm
Further remarks:
Other information coded in the number
Additional codes for, e.g., division of the application, stages in the
procedure, way of filing, etc.
Machine-readable form:
Is there any difference between the display (or print) presentation
and the machine-readable form used for this numbering system? If
there is, please provide examples of the machine-readable
representation of the numbers (application and priority application)
and explain this difference.
Note concerning separators (if necessary)
Separators used (slash, space, hyphen or others) are not counted for
defining the position of elements of the application number.

[End of Annex and of document]