Swiss patent classifications
Nicolas Chachereau has explained the history of these. There was a classification in Nov 1888, when Switzerland's patent law came into force. It was replaced by a new classification in 1890, and previous patents were reclassified. A revised law in 1907 which incorporated patentability of chemicals led to a new 1908 classification.
He has a copy of the 1890 one, probably from this Patent-Liste in the Swiss National Library: http://permalink.snl.ch/bib/sz001125282 He has a copy of the 1908 one, which was published as a little book or leaflet: http://permalink.snl.ch/bib/sz001707679
For our purposes here we can just summarize these. Both classifications are fully displayed in French and in German in documents Chachereau has shared with us.
- The 1890 categories are numbered from 1 to 116. They are grouped into supercategories signified by capital letters, A-Q. The capital-letter supercategories are not necessary for disambiguation as there is no overlap of categories within them, and indeed the capital letter supercategoriesa re not often used. Each class and supercategories has a name in French and in German.
- The 1908 supercategories are identified by capital letters, A-S, with classes within them numbered from 1 to 129, with subclasses under them with a number followed by single letter suffixes, e.g. a-k depending on class. All patents are categorized in one of these subclasses, not in the numbered classes.
For future work: Swiss patent classifications in the early aero period are laid out in books in USPTO's STIC library. The book we have from about 1920 shows a list of the classes in German and in French.
We can split this concept into Swiss patent classifications, 1888-1889, Swiss patent classifications, 1890-1907, and Swiss patent classifications, 1908-1920. (1920 is an arbitrary end date ; I don't know when the classes actually changed after 1908. Chachereau puts an emphasis on all systemic changes occurring between 1888 and 1914. Some of his writing explores in broadstrokes the evolving needs behind particular changes in protocol. This has in part to do with industrialization, with Swiss interests in the international context, and with something along the lines of trial and error, as one approach to classification may avoid difficulties arising from an approach taken earlier.)
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| Enclosing categories | Patent classification systems |
|---|---|
| Subcategories | Swiss patent classifications, 1888-1889, Swiss patent classifications, 1890-1907, Swiss patent classifications, 1908-1920 |
| Keywords | |
| Start year | 1888 |
| End year | 1920 |
