Manual of Patent Examining Procedure - MPEP

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900 Prior Art, Classification, and Search

903.02(c) Establishing Subclasses and Cross-Reference Art Col-lections

When an examiner finds it desirable to create a new subclass or cross-reference art collection, the appropriate supervisory patent classifier (SPC) must be consulted before work is begun. The SPC will assist the examiner in establishing any new subclass or cross-reference art collection by providing appropriate instructions on how to transfer patents from an existing subclass to a new subclass, obtaining any additional cross-reference copies that might be needed, determining the title of the newly established subclass or cross-reference art collection, and assigning the numeric designation to be placed on the new subclass or cross-reference art collection.

All newly created subclasses will be made official so as to be a part of the defined classification system . Any examiner having the Technology Center (TC) Director's approval to create new subclasses should contact the SPC for his or her technology. As workload permits, staff will be assigned to cooperate with the examiner on the arrangement of the subclasses he or she wishes to establish and the definitions thereof. Then, the examiner will include a spreadsheet of the patents in the subclass or subclasses being affected. On a time available basis, the examiner may be aided in this task by other classification staff .

New classification data will be added to the Subclass Data File (SDF) and Master Classification File (MCF) as appropriate, patent copies will be relabeled with the new classification information, and the documents will be refiled in the new classification array. Concurrently, all automated classification indices and systems, including the EAST and WEST search tools, will be updated to reflect the new classification changes.

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