5 major intellectual property offices (IP5), namely offices in Korea, the US, Japan, China and Europe are venturing to harmonize various aspects of patent searches, such as the patent data and search strategies. After the patent offices share the data, the data will be converted into a common format. Further, the examination know-how of the examiners of the IP5 countries will also be shared so that the processes can be standardized and the various patent search systems can be integrated. The full-scale system hopes to be up and running by 2012, providing dramatic changes to patent searches and improvement of the examination quality.

                                                                                                                                                                    --source: AJU Kim Chang & Lee