CWS.ATR.PI.2010.LT

Annual Technical Report 2010 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Lithuania (CWS/ATR/PI/2010/LT)

Where URLs are requested below, it is preferred that either URLs which are likely to remain stable over time (three years or more) are provided, or home (main) page URLs are provided with a short explanation of how to access the corresponding information.

The term "patent" covers utility models and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs). Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in their Annual Technical Reports on Industrial Design Information Activities.

I. Evolution of patent activities

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants with respect to the previous year

Application filings and grants in 2010:

129 patent applications filed direct with the State Patent Bureau of the Republic of Lithuania (SPB), from which 86,8 % applications originating in Lithuania (including: 3 PCT international applications; 1 application in accordance with EPC);
2 PCT international applications commenced the national phase;
92 national patent applications published;
84 Lithuanian patents granted;
941 European patents enforced in Lithuania (including 704 European patents in accordance with EPC).

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

Compared with 2009 the number of:

national filings have increased by 20,6 %;
filings originating in Lithuania have decreased by 0,7 %
Lithuanian grants were constant;
European patents enforced in Lithuania have decreased by 9,4 %.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to patents

Statistics of the year 2010 (national filings and PCT national phase entries, national patents granted on the basis of national filings and PCT national phase entries, national patent applications pending, national patents in force) is provided on SPB website (http://www.vpb.gov.lt/index.php?l=en&n=321).

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information

Publishing, printing, copying (main types of publications of the Office in the field of patent information, etc.)

The SPB official patent publications are:

Patent Applications (A documents);
Patent Specifications (B documents);
Official Bulletin Inventions, Designs, Trademarks.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information

The Official Bulletin contained announcements published in 2010:

BB1A Patent Applications published in accordance with Article 21 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
FG9A Patents published in accordance with Article 22 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
FD9A Patent Applications withdrawn accordance with Article 21 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
MM9A Patents lapsed in accordance with Article 27 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
PC9A Transfer of Patents in accordance with Article 31 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
QA9A Licensing in accordance with Article 37 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
QB9A Licensing in accordance with Articles 34-36, 38 and 39 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
PD9A, TA9A, TC9A TH9A Changes in Patents published in accordance with Article 43 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
BB1A International Patent Applications published in accordance with Article 48 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
BB1D European Patent Applications published in accordance with Article 51 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
FG9D European Patents published in accordance with Article 54 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
BB4D European Patent Applications published in accordance with Article 59(2) of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
FG4D European Patents published in accordance with Article 59(3) of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
MG9D Revocation of European Patent extension in accordance with Article 54 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
MG4D Revocation of European Patents in accordance with Article 59(3) of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
PD9D, DC9D, TH9A Changes in European Patents published in accordance with Article 54 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
PC9D Transfer of Patents published in accordance with Article 54 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
QB9D Licensing in accordance with Article 54 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
MF9D European Patents revoked in accordance with Article 54 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
MM9D Cancellation of European Patent extension in accordance with Article 58 of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
ND9D Applications for Supplementary Protection Certificates published in accordance with Article 27(1) of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
ND9D Supplementary Protection Certificates published in accordance with Article 27(1) of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
ND1D Decisions not to grant Supplementary Protection Certificates published in accordance with Article 27(1) of Patent Law of the Republic of Lithuania;
TH9D, TK9D Rectifications.

Sections of the Official Bulletin have been coded in accordance with WIPO Standard ST.17.

Mass storage media used (paper, microforms, optical storage, etc.)

SPB Official Bulletin has been published in an electronic format and has been accessible on SPB website (http://www.vpb.lt/index.php?l=en&n=245).

Patent Applications in paper form (A documents) and Patent Specifications (B documents) have been open for public inspection at Lithuanian Technical Library (LTL).

Word processing and office automation

Scanned Patent Specifications (B documents) SPB have sent to ARCANUM INFORMATICS Ltd. for inclusion into EPO Bacon Numerical System (BNS) and Espacenet databases. Lithuanian Patent Applications (A documents) have been not available on EPO BNS and Espacenet databases.

(New) techniques used for the generation of patent information (printing, recording, photocomposing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), etc.)

Lithuanian B documents have been scanned by the SPB with EPO official tool epoScan in standardised exchange facsimile format (WIPO ST. 33).

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online publication of patent documents and gazettes, and to other primary and secondary sources of patent information, including patent publication servers and download of bulk patent data

Databases of Patents of the Republic of Lithuania and of European Patents entered into force in the Republic of Lithuania have been accessible on SPB website (http://www.vpb.gov.lt/index.php?l=en&n=333).

III. Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents

Abstracting, reviewing, translating

Lithuanian language invention abstracts of patent applications and patents have been published as presented by applicants.

English language abstracts to be published on EPO BNS and Espacenet databases have been translated by SPB examiners.

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), and reclassification³ activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC), other classification (please indicate whether or not patent documents are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)

92 patent applications published were classified in accordance with eight edition of International Patent Classification (IPC) in 2010.

Coordinate indexing (domestic deep indexing systems, keyword indexing)

Internationally agreed Numbers for the Identification of Data (INID codes) relating to patents have been used in the Register, Official Bulletin, Patent Applications (A documents) and Patent Specifications (B documents).

Bibliographic data and full-text processing

The SPB Official Bulletin Sections have been coded in accordance with WIPO Standard ST.17.

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

Updating

At the end of the year, the stocks of LTB contained over 45,8 million patent documents.

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file

LTL stocks have been updated with full text patent documents from countries and organizations (AM, BG, BY, CA, CH, CZ, DE, DK, EA, EP, FI, FR, GB, GE, HU, JP, KG, KZ, LT, LV, MD, RO, RU, TJ, UA, US, UZ, WO).

V. Activities in the field of computerized and other mechanized search systems

In-house systems (online/offline)

The SPB published on its website (http://www.vpb.lt/en/) the Official Bulletin Inventions, Designs, Trademarks and databases of Lithuanian Patents and European Patents entered into force in the Republic of Lithuania. SPB website Databases have been an exact copy of the data stored in the Common Software Databases. Common Software Databases contained bibliographic, legal status data, abstract data, national patent applications (A documents) and national patent specifications (B documents), translated claims of European Patents entered into force in the Republic of Lithuania included.

External databases

Industrial Property search and other services have been provided by Patent Information Centre of LTL (http://www.tb.lt/PIC/PIC.htm).

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

Statistics of national patents has been also provided on the SPB website (http://www.vpb.lt/index.php?l=en&n=321).

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used

Lithuanian Patent Specifications (B documents) have been available on SPB website (www.vpb.gov.lt), EPO BNS and Espacenet databases.
Lithuanian Patent Applications (A documents) have been available on SPB website Database of the Patents of the Republic of Lithuania (http://www.vpb.lt/index.php?p=238&l=en&n=246).

Bibliographic, legal status data (SPC data and data in accordance with EPC included) have been available also on EPIDOS/INPADOC databases.

VI. Administration of the industrial property office library, and information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, for assisting clients on searching procedures, for obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

Collection management, preservation

Lithuanian Technical Library (LTL) offered for visitors the opportunity to get acquainted with a wide range of Lithuanian publications (SPB Official Bulletin, full text of patent specifications in paper and CD-ROM format, etc.), Official Gazettes, patent bibliography of foreign states and intergovernmental organisations on CD/DVD-ROMs, sets of communications and regulations in 2010.

The visitors of LTL had been consulted on the spot as well as by phone or e-mail and had an opportunity to order patent search.

Interlibrary lending, resource sharing, networks of patent libraries in the country

Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and patent information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)

Search for patents in the CD-ROM databases, Internet and other services have been provided by Patent Information Centre of Lithuanian Technical Library (http://www.tb.lt/PIC/PIC.htm)

LTL website (http://www.tb.lt/PIC/PIC.htm) provided scanned Lithuanian patent A and B documents.

URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of patent applications

It is not possible to file patent applications or any other document with the SPB electronically.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and grant procedures related to patents; opposition and appeal procedures related to patents; etc.

Legal acts have been provided on the SPB website (http://www.vpb.gov.lt/index.php?n=296&l=en).

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., patent search service(s) and patent databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

SPB published on its website (http://www.vpb.lt/en/) the Official Gazette Inventions, Designs, Trademarks and databases of Lithuanian Patents and European Patents entered into force in the Republic of Lithuania.

Statistics of national patents has been provided on the SPB website (http://www.vpb.lt/index.php?l=en&n=321).

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., bibliographic data, abstract and/or full text information

The distribution of official patent publications of the SPB in foreign states and intergovernmental organisations on the basis of mutual exchange has been effected by LTL.

Bibliographic, legal status data, abstracts in Lithuanian and English of Lithuanian patent applications and patents, extracted from SPB Common Software Database, have been posted on EPO FTP sites prior to the actual publication date.
Scanned Patent Specifications (B documents) SPB have sent to ARCANUM INFORMATICS Ltd. for inclusion into EPO Bacon Numerical System (BNS) and Espacenet databases. Lithuanian Patent Applications (A documents) have been not available on EPO BNS and Espacenet databases.

The bibliographic, legal status data on Lithuanian Patent Applications, PCT Applications, Lithuanian Patents and European Patents have been supplied to EPO to be included into ACCESS-EPC, INPADOC PFS, INPADOC PRS and Espacenet. PCT Applications data have been also supplied to WIPO to be included into PATENTSCOPE® search service database.

Medium used for exchange of priority documents

Format in paper form has been used for exchange of priority documents and for filing of patent applications.

VIII. Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)

Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)

In year 2010 the SPB organized seminars, attended exhibitions and other events, namely:
In February 2010 the SPB organized a seminar “How to Protect Trademarks and Designs in the European Union” in the premises of the LTL. Branches of LTL in Kaunas, Klaipėda and Panevėžys had open days organized by PIC of the LTL, during which SPB’s specialists informed on possibilities how to protect marks and designs in the European Union.
On 26 April 2010, commemorating the World Intellectual Property day for the tenth time, a non-profit organization IPR-help of the Council of the European Union together with the SPB organized a seminar “How to Protect Intellectual Property and Feel Safe in EU and Global Markets” in the premises of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. The seminar was designated for developers and users of intellectual property objects, small and medium-size enterprises in .particular. At the same time an exhibition called “Protection of Intellectual Property after Restoration of Independence” was arranged, people were invited to an open day in the premises of the SPB. Later this exhibition was held at Vilnius Gediminas Technical .University (VGTU), Kaunas University of Technology (KTU) and Klaipėda University and the branch of LTL in Kaunas. One more exhibition of the SPB and LTL was held at Šiauliai University.
In May 2010 the SPB attended an exhibition “Balttechnika 2010” and events of the Entrepreneurship week, which took place at the Lithuanian exhibition centre LITEXPO. PIC specialists represented at the stands of the SPB.
In September 2010 the SPB and WIPO organized a seminar “The Role of Patent Information and Use of Technologies in Promotion of Innovations” in Palanga. Representatives of PIC made two reports in this seminar.
In November 2010 the SPB and WIPO organized a regional training seminar for judges. Judges from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Poland attended the seminar.

Lithuanian Technical Library published 4 information publications “Protection of Industrial Property” in year 2010.

IX. Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:

provide information on legislation related to patents

The SPB website (http://www.vpb.gov.lt/) provided information on legislation related to patents in 2010.

contain the Annual Report of the Office

The Annual Report of the Office has been included on the SPB website (http://www.vpb.lt/index.php?l=en&n=318).

contain patent-related news regarding the Office

SPB website (http://www.vpb.lt/index.php?l=EN)contained patent related news.

X. Other relevant matters