Patent Universe
Every one of the 254,000 CPC classification codes as a point of light, arranged by hierarchy: eight technology sections, their classes, subclasses and the full subgroup dust. Pan and zoom to explore, switch to IPC to see the smaller system, or to Diff to see where CPC goes deeper.
Patent Universe: the interactive 3D map.
The classification universe, chapter by chapter
Eight sections, one map
Every CPC classification code appears as a point of light, clustered by technology section: from A (Human Necessities) to H (Electricity) plus the cross-sectional Y collection. Brightness follows patent filing volume, and the global statistics break the same data down by country, section and year.
Why two systems exist
The international IPC has been the shared filing language of patent offices worldwide since 1971. CPC is the finer working scheme that EPO and USPTO layered on top of it in 2013: the same root and structure, but roughly four times the codes, so examiners can classify with more precision. A large share of the codes belong to the shared IPC backbone, visible in the map's IPC view.
Where CPC goes deeper
The majority of codes exist only in CPC. The Diff view shows them as a teal bloom across the map, and the tour's finale flies through Y10T, the USPTO's legacy cross-reference collection: a dense ball of codes with no IPC counterpart at all.
What the data says
The fastest-growing field right now is A01P (biocidal, pest repellant, pest attractant or plant growth re), at +62.8% a year; all trending and declining fields are computed live from the filing data behind this site. SAMSUNG ELECTRONICS COMPANY leads the top applicants with 278,264 applications counted across the technology areas, and US dominates among the leading filers' home countries. For a guided reading of whole technology areas, the curated topic pages connect the codes to plain-language explanations.
Explore freely
Start the tour for the guided flight, or explore on your own: click a node to fly to it, drag to orbit, scroll to zoom, and hover any point of light to reveal the individual classification code behind it.