CWS.ATR.PI.2010.RS

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

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

Patent applications in 2010

Patent application filed by domestic applicants: 290, -3 % compared to 2009 (299)
Foreign applications filed directly in the IPO: 23, +9.5 % compared to 2009 (21)
PCT applications in national phase: 16, - 60 % compared to 2009 (40)
Extended EP applications (paid designation fee): 3559, -16 % compared to 2009 (4258)
TOTAL: 3888, -16 % compared to 2009 (4618)

Petty patent applications in 2010

Domestic applicants: 97, -3% compared to 2009 (101)
Foreign applicants: 4, no change compared to 2009 (4)

TOTAL: 101, -4 % compared to 2009 (105)


Number of patents granted in 2010

Domestic patentee: 98, -5 % compared to 2009 (103)
Foreign patentee: 854, +285 % compared to 2009 (300)

TOTAL: 952, + 236% compared to 2009 (403)


Number of petty patents granted in 2010

Domestic patentee: 74, -14 % compared to 2009 (86)
Foreign patentee: 4, in 2009: 0

TOTAL: 78, -9% compared to 2008 (86)

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

n the course of 2010, 952 patents were registered which represents the increase of 549 granted patents or +136% in comparison to previous year.

In the course of 2010, 250 requests were filed in the Office for the entry of extended European patent in the Register of patents, which is the increase of around +14% in comparison to previous year.

525 extended European patents were entered into Register of patents, which are included in the number of registered patents.

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

The statitic for 2010 could be found in Annual Report 2010
http://www.zis.gov.rs/upload/documents/pdf_sr/pdf_o_nama/GI_2010_podlistak.pdf, and http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/statistics.65.html

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.)

Intellectual Property Gazette is the basic official source of information about all intellectual property rights. 6 issues of IP Gazette were issued in 2010 – one issue in two months. It is published bilingually, in paper, CD carrier and electronicaly at the IPO web site (http://www.zis.gov.rs/информационе-услуге/гласник-интелектуалне-својине.48.html).

Publishing department of IPO prints in-house whole patent documents after grant of patent/petty patent as well as patent certificates, application forms, IPC as well as guide for drafting patent application.

Also, in the course of 2010, IPO Office prepared and have published 4 books two of them were tranlation of the WIPO publications (WIPO edition IP for successful business) and 8 brochures for information and advertisement purpose about administrative procedures of protection of certain IP rights, about services offered by the Office and possibilities of utilization of the data bases. These prospects were used primarily for the representation of the Office at the fairs, exhibitions and seminars all over the Serbia

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

The Official Gazette contains bibliographic data with abstracts in Serbian and English on published patent applications, registered patents and registered petty patents. In each issue of Gazette bibliographic data on provisional protection of European patent applications are published on the basis of list of designations received from the EPO.

Since 2007, the Annual Reports of the IPO are available at the Office’s web site in both Serbian and English language.(http://www.zis.gov.rs/about-us/annual-report.106.html)

Full text of all patent documents published since 1976, are available on Publication server of the IPO.(http://89.216.38.53/rs-pubserver/search.jsp?lg=sr)

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

All national published patent documents are available in paper form in separate room in the Office.

Patent documents since 1976 are, after reverting on Eposcan into PDF, avaliable on Pub Server and in the national MIMOSA RS database.

Word processing and office automation

For the purpose of preparation of the Gazette, the Word processor is used the most as well as for preparing documents for piblication, where the other advanced techniques are not applicable.

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

Patent documentation of published patent applications are scanned on Eposcan and documents in the PDF form are available through PubServer and MIMOSA.
During the preparation and printing of registered patents and petty patents different OCR programs are used. Earlier Adobe Fine Reader and now all multifunctional scan/copying machines in the Office have built-in text converters for different types of format (PDF, TIF, GIF etc)

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

The IPO web site (http://www.zis.gov.rs/home.59.html) provides variety of information, i.e. a specific patent document could be search at Publication server, the Official Gazette could be downloaded or, the search of the national patent's database could be conducted.

At the following URL which is a link with Publication Server, all national published patent documents (patents, petty patents and published patent applications) are available for search according to IPC symbol, application/publication number and publication date from 1976. The documents are in PDF and suitable for download.
http://89.216.38.53/rs-pubserver/resultlist.jsp

On-line version of Advanced level of IPC8 translated in Serbian is available at the following URL :
https://89.216.38.52/SerbIPC/index.php?lang=sr

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

Abstracting, reviewing, translating

All granted patent and petty patent are published with abstracts on the first page. The abstracts and titles are translated into the English language and are stored into MIMOSA RS database, on both Serbian and English languages.

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)

In 2010 the current version of advanced level of IPC8 was used to classify the new applications and symbols assigned are indexed. Earlier published patent applications classified according with the earlier IPC editions are reclassified during the grant procedure.

There is a link to the IPC8 at the IPO's web site, and some of the older editions of IPC8 had been translated into the Serbian language (https://89.216.38.52/SerbIPC/index.php).

Bibliographic data and full-text processing

Published patent applications, granted patent and registered petty patent are searchable by date of filing, date of publication, by priority date, by number of application, by number of patent, by number of petty patent, by name of inventor, by name of applicant, by name of patentee and by IPC classification on MIMOSA RS database.

Published patent applications, granted patent and registered petty patent are searchable by number of application, by number of publication and by IPC classification on Publication server.

Full text of all published patent documents are availabel on Publication server and MIMOSA RS. 

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

File building

The Patent Library has continued to maintain and update the specialized files on paper and CD or DVD with patent documents from 8 countries including EPO and PCT documents.

Updating

Bi-monthly updating of library fond.

Storage, including mass storage media

Data are stored in electronic (official database, hard discs, external hard discs, for backup) and in paper form.

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

The Office received foreign patent document on CD and DVD.
Official bulletins of foreign offices are available in electronic and in paper form.

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

In-house systems (online/offline)

All the searches at the IPO are computerized. Each working station has fast internet access and all external, mostly free, patent databases are accessible through it. Primarily it was internally and since 2009 became publicly on-line available, MIMOSA RS professional search software for advanced search through published national patent documents. Search allows use of all bibliographic search criteria and their combination including keywords in title and abstract in Serbian and English. Office also has complete collection of ESPACE EP and PCT patent documentation and it is accessible online/offline with MIMOSA RS, too.

Published patent applications, granted patent and registered petty patent are searchable by: filling date, publication date, priority date, application number, patent number, petty patent number, inventor name, applicant name, patentee and IPC classification symbol on MIMOSA RS database.

Also in the course of 2010 15502 patent documents were uploaded into the MIMOSA RS database, and are available for online searching.

National patent documentation consists of: 38 236 published patent applications, 17 104 granted patents and 1 197 petty patents since 1976. (http://www.zis.gov.rs/left/databases.421.html)

Internally IPAS administration system is used for administration of patent applications.

External databases

IPO's examiners are provided with the access to the professional patent documentation database EPOQUEnet. Patent examiners started to conduct patent searches using this database in 2009. The epoque.net is also used for conducting searches within the commercial services offered by the Office.
For the purpose of examination, all available free-databases are used as the source of patent information

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

In Patent Sector the IPAS (Intellectual Property Administration System, developed by WIPO) was deployes for administration of patent applications.
All data and changes in all stages of the granting procedure, from receiving of application to granting of the patent, were administered through IPAS. Since IPAS was introduced in Trademark Sector two years earlier, new server is acquired for new function of administering patent/petty patent applications. Also it is possible to perform simple search in IPAS and to get excerpts in determined beforehand templates. Patent search in IPAS is available in-house.

Very important job in this field, which has started in 2008 was regarding transformation of bibliographic data form Oracle database, i.e.withdrawing the bibliographic data and transformin it in XML St36 format and using such a data for uploading new documents in the MIMOSA RS database and also providing the EPO with RS data in order to become accessible through the esp@cenet.

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

Internet access is achieved through direct optical connection to the provider at 12Mbit/sec, 2xCisco ASA 5510 in active/standby firewall configuration.

IPAS server for patents - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX200 server, 4GB RAM memory, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, aplication software is IPAS (proprietary), database is Oracle.

Pub Server for patents:
Internet access - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX300 server, 4 GB RAM, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, web browser as a client, application server Apache/Tomcat, MySql database.
Intranet access - FujitsuSiemens Esprimo P workstation as a server (2 GB of RAM, 2x146GB hard disks).MS Windows XP, Active Directory database member, Mimosa software as a client, application server Apache/Tomcat, MySql database
System EPOQUEnet provided by EPO with communication server

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)

Planning, administration, automation, security, buildings

The Patent Library of the Department for Patent Documentation and Information Dissemination is part of the Information Services Sector.
There are no special requirements for the library use and there is free access to the library's reading room. Patent library was equipped with 5 workstation with internet access and with the access to national patent documentation database. Access to the paper patent documentation discontinued in the 2009 for the customers and their availability from the mid 2009 is solely through electronically databases.
Stuff in library often assists our clients in searching procedures especially to those who are not familiar in handling with electronically databases. Library is equipped with copy machine and printers where the clients can get the copies of relevant documents they are interested in.
Office also provides information services in the field of patents on written requests which are liable to payment of corresponding fees.
Different kinds of services are listed below:
- Informing economic agents and other users about the existence and use of patent information;
- Professional assistance of experts from the Office in determining the type of patent information;
- Professional assistance for users of patent information in understanding the bibliographic data and interpretation of patent information of a legal nature contained in patent documents;
- Professional assistance in drafting requests for a search of the patent documentation;
- Patent documentation search based on written requests with enclosures of the copies of relevant patent documents specified in the search report; (commercial service)
- Systematic searches into a particular field of technology in a particular interval of time according to the defined needs; (commercial service)
- The possibility of autonomous patent documentation search;
- Provision of information to the public regarding the legal status of patents and petty patents, as well as of patent applications; (commercial service)
- Delivery of copies of patent specifications upon request; (commercial service)
- Publication of the Intellectual Property Gazette (Glasnik intelektualne svojine - GIS), the official newsletter of the Intellectual Property Office, with information on the published industrial property rights;
- Organization of seminars and courses with relevant programs for the users of patent information.

Collecting, acquisitions, preparation

The Patent Library holds and maintains collections of domestic and foreign patent documents and other relevant material in the field of intellectual property on different media.

Collection management, preservation

The paper collections are stored according to the IPC classes and number. The electronic collections are numerical. All the documents can be use on request in the library's reading room.

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)

The patent collections and the Internet access are available in the public reading room. The Office`s employees carries out personal assistance and consultations. The Office also provides searches on commercial basis upon written request.

The national patent collection is also available to the public on-line

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.

At the IPO's web site, under the Intellectual propery rights subfolder the Patent information are avaliable in both (serbian and english) languages. There are the links for all proceedings before the Office as well as FAQ, Legislative texts, statistics, international patent protection, relevant agreements etc. There is no opposition and appeal procedures which are conduted in the Office, but the interested party start the actions against IPO decisions before the relevant court which then forward the request to the Office.
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/most-frequently-asked.60.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/права-ис/патенти/најчешћа-питања.2.html

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

 http://www.zis.gov.rs/information-services/scope.107.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/forms-and-instructions.62.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/fees.63.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/databases/patent-databases.419.html

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

Serbian patent documents are available in the MIMOSA RS database, while the exchange of data in electronic format are conducted with the EPO for the data since 2006. Also, Official Gazette on CD-ROM are distributed to patent offices of 19 counties.

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)

Training courses for national and foreign participants, use of audiovisual means

IPO of Serbia had established the Education and Information Center in 2009. The IPO is equipped with the modern public library, and the premises for seminars and educational purpose. For all information our stakeholder can visit IPO's web site. http://www.zis.gov.rs/home.334.html

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

TESLA FEST in Novi Sad -the biggest inventor's exhibition in Serbia,October 2010
INOCOOP Fair of entrepreneurship in Zrenjanin - August 2010
Belgrade's inventor exhibition - May 2010
Also, during 2010, the IPO had organized number of seminars for the representatives of scientific and business community and other stakeholder groups.

Studies to identify trends in new technology, e.g., by the use of patent statistics and preparation of monographs

In the courese of 2010 the IPO had initiated and published two studies:
1. Small and medium enterprises and intellectual property, and
2. Analysis of the innovation potential in the Republic of Serbia which are both available on the IPO web-site.

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

National Laws in relation to patents and International Agreements are available at:
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/legislative-texts.61.html in English, and
http://www.zis.gov.rs/права-ис/патенти/прописи.3.html in Serbian,

contain the Annual Report of the Office

The Annul Reports of the IPO presents all the activities of the Office with the detail statistics data. Since 2007 the Reports are available on the IPO's website at followigh URLs:
http://www.zis.gov.rs/about-us/annual-report.106.html in English
http://www.zis.gov.rs/о-заводу/годишњи-извештаји.50.html in Serbian

contain patent-related news regarding the Office

At the IPO website, there is no separate part for patent new, but all news have been published together depends on the occasion. They are regularly updated and are available at:
http://www.zis.gov.rs/news/news.104.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/вести/вести.46.html

X. Other relevant matters