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901.07 Arrangement of Art in Technology Centers - 900 Prior Art, Classification, Search
901.07 Arrangement of Art in Technology Centers
In the Technology Centers (TCs), the U.S. patents are arranged in shoes bearing appropriate labels, each showing the class, subclass, and usually the lowest and highest numbered patents put in the respective shoe. The patents are arranged in numerical order. White labels denote U.S. patents, pink labels denote foreign patents filed according to U.S. classifications, blue labels denote non-patent literature, and yellow labels denote foreign patents filed according to IPC classifications.
One copy of a U.S. patent is designated as "original" and is classified in a specific subclass, based on the controlling claim. Other copies may be placed in other subclasses as cross-references, based on additional claimed inventions and/or pertinent unclaimed disclosure. Cross-reference copies are filed in numerical order along with the copies of original patents to simplify the tasks of searching and filing.
Copies of foreign patents are usually kept in shoes separate from and immediately following the U.S. patents.
All foreign patent documents (patents and published applications) involved in a reclassification project issued between January 1, 1974 and October 1, 1995 are filed by a computer-generated sequence number within each subclass. Each such foreign patent document has the year of publication indicated in the upper right-hand corner of the front page.
Nonpatent publications or photocopies thereof containing disclosures for particular subclasses, if numerous, should be filed in shoes following the foreign patents; otherwise, they should be filed at the bottom of the last shoe of foreign patents.
In most reclassification projects undertaken after October 1, 1995, foreign patents associated with the reclassified art have not been reclassified into the new classification schedule created for the U.S. patents. Foreign patents in this category are available for searching in a "foreign patent art collection," which appears at the end of the class which includes the newly created classification schedule. The first sub-grouping of art within the "foreign patent art collection" following a given class is identified as "FOR 000" and is titled "CLASS-RELATED FOREIGN DOCUMENTS." The "FOR 000" subclass is a "class-level" collection of foreign patents that concord to the class but not to any particular subclass within the class. The "FOR 000" subclass does not have a definition.
Other subclasses appearing in the "foreign patent art collection" for a given class are characterized by the prefix "FOR" followed immediately by a three-digit number. These "FOR" subclasses maintain the foreign patents classified in the former classification schedule, i.e., the schedule that was the subject of the reclassification project. In certain instances, one or more unnumbered titles precede these "FOR" subclasses to show the proper hierarchical relationship for the indented foreign art collections. At the end of each "FOR" subclass in the "foreign patent art collection," there appears in parentheses the subclass number under which the foreign patents had been classified prior to the reclassification project. Subclass definitions for the "foreign patent art collection," exactly corresponding to those of said former classification schedule, are maintained.
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