The Central Services component is a new system which is designed to provide efficient and reliable communications between IP offices and global systems.

The system currently supports a small number of data exchanges:

• Classification services, to provide automated updates of Nice, Vienna, IPC and Locarno classification schemas.
• Reception (by the IP office) of notifications and data for Madrid and PCT designations.
• Transmittal (by the IP office) of notifications for Madrid designations.

The system will be progressively updated to support more transactions and services including, inter alia, data exchange for global databases and statistics, access to centralized data resources such as patent family data, support for PCT receiving office and Madrid office of origin transactions, etc.