Annual Technical Report 2011 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Canada (CWS/ATR/PI/2011/CA)

 

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

National:
35111 filings of which 26759 were PCT (2011)
35449 filings of which 27460 were PCT (2010)

PCT:
2134 CA RO filings (2011)
2037 CA RO filings (2010)


ISA:
2320 ISA requests (2011)
2193 ISA requests (2010)

IPEA:
272 chapter II requests (2011)
273 chapter II requests (2010)

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

Trends in our e-services
National:
1325 e-filings 12405 e-correspondence (2011)
1182 e-filings 12064 e-correspondence (2010)

PCT:
765 e-filings (2011)
495 e-filings (2010)

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.)

Canadian Patent Office Record (Gazette) is published weekly and is available on CIPO's website.

The Annual index of the Canadian Patent Office Record is also available on CIPO’s website.

MIMOSA CDs for applications open to public inspection and granted patents are prepared every week and sent to various Patent Offices around the world.

Images and text of applications open to public inspection and granted patents are sent by FTP weekly.

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

Office notices and changes to office procedures are published through the Canadian Patent Office Record (CPOR).

Some of these office notices, and many other patent related notices, are put directly on the CIPO website under the Patent Notices section at the following link.

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00292.html

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

Our TechSource system includes bibliographic data (from 1869-present), text (abstract, claim and description of laid open patent documents from 1978-present) and images of patent documents (from 1920-present). All these documents are stored on hard disk technology.

Word processing and office automation

Custom correspondence is done using WordPerfect 10. All other office automation tasks are performed within our patent processing system TechSource.

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

The generation of patent information (printing) is done through a combination of software tools supported by the TechSource patent processing system.

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 following is a link to electronic IP Data Products CIPO provides. http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr01933.html

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

Abstracting, reviewing, translating

The Office translates the titles in French or English depending on the language of the application. Some translations are retrieved from the PCT import process which uses an XML file “FTPed” from WIPO or downloaded from WIPO’s PatentScope. We are currently working on providing abstracts in both French and English on patent in Good Standing.

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)

The Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) classifies patent documents internally using the International Patent Classification system (IPC) as its classification system since October 1, 1989. Before this date, the office used the Canadian Patent Classification system as its classification system. Documents between August 1978 and March 1994 contain classification codes from both systems. Classification code information appearing on applications following the PCT route are transferred directly in our system and can be reviewed any time thereafter.

Bibliographic data and full-text processing

CIPO maintains an electronic search file of all patent documents open to public from 1920-present, searchable using bibliographical data.

Documents from 1978 -present are also searchable using text fields of abstract, claims and description. Only the text from the abstract and claims is verified for quality when the image is converted to text using OCR. The bibliographical information and image format of patent documents are available internally through our in-house system ”Intellect” or externally on the Canadian Patent Database though our Web site. The only information not available for searching on our website is the text from the description.

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

File building

The information for our search engine is coming from our Line of Business (Mainframe based application to handle national cases) application which enables CIPO to manage electronically all Canadian patent documents (paperless office).

Updating

The Canadian Database search engine is updated electronically daily for our internal search tool and our external search tool available on our web site. Our search system is entitled Intellect which was put into production in 2008.

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

In-house systems (online/offline)

CIPO is involved in a renewal project to replace the electronic patent document data management system (Line of Business) in future years.

On the e-commerce side, our Office has completed a project to implement PCT-Safe electronic filing of applications. In addition we have expanded our electronic commerce transaction to accept electronic payment of patents maintenance fees and we will be looking at other areas of improvement in the area of e-commerce.

External databases

CIPO uses commercial databases on patents and technical literature through, for example, Questel-Orbit, STN, DIALOG, Delphion, GeneSeq providers and general databases available over the Internet.

We rolled out the EPOQUENet system to all our examiners in the course of the year.

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

Information on patent documents is available through a mainframe application which supports the administration of the patent process by managing: applications, granted patents, applicant, inventors, owners, agent information, etc. The system also provides statistical information, management reports, fee payment, correspondence, workflow management facility, etc.

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

TechSource is the system used by the Patent Branch of the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO) to support its delivery of all patent prosecution processes. The core of the system consists of the major integration of Commercial Off-The Shelf (COTS) products; Image Plus to handle the scanning and viewing of images, FAF for the management of documents, Verity to handle the textual searching requirements and QMF to handle interactive query of the data. These COTS products operate in an IBM mainframe environment that supports, and is supported by, the Line Of Business (LOB) system which is a mainframe CICS and DB2 applications that handles patent application tracking, financial and client management elements of the patent process. Bridging exists between the different applications to have an integrated system. In addition to these COTS products we also use several custom made applications. We use some applications created with C++ to handle National Entry applications, International PCT applications and for the classification of all applications. We also have a custom web based application as our internal search tool, Intellect.

User workstations are operating using the WindowsXP operating system and are networked through an ethernet LAN.

Existing online thesauri; their structure, presentation and usefulness for computerized searches

Thesauri capability is in TechSource but was never implemented but one does exist in our new WEB based internal search tool, Intellect.

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)

CIPO consolidated all of it's intellectual property Search Libraries in Gatineau, Quebec into a single Client Service Centre. The various paper search files have been removed. CIPO clients now search only the electronic search files.
The library resides under the Information Management portfolio. In an effort to enhance client experience it has aligned itself to the corporate strategic objectives. The CIPO Resource Centre, provides non-patent literature research and reference services. It enables employees to access world-class external information sources by its many e-resources. Its current emphasis is on enhancing the virtual collection and training employees to effectively access electronic information sources from their desktops. It serves as the central point for information procurement within the organization. Its new service include webinars, speciality wiki's and is soon to introduce e-books.

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.

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00001.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.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00720.html

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

CIPO now provides Laid-open and Grants documents on CD-R or via FTP transfer.
http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr01933.html

Medium allowed for filing applications

• Filings can be made on paper, electronic medium or via our web site.
• CIPO is still running a PPH pilot with many countries; we can get files from their public PAIRS system. The USPTO has to get Canadian files directly from their applicant.
• The following is a link to our Correspondence Procedures. http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/wr00633.html

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)

In 2011, the Canadian Intellectual Property Office, in partnership with WIPO, offered a one-week Specialized Training Workshop on the Application of Management Techniques in the Delivery of IP Services. Eleven Senior Officials from Bangladesh, Brazil, Croatia, Lebanon, Mexico, Nigeria, the Philippines, Serbia, South Africa, Tajikistan, and Thailand participated in the 5-day workshop. The Executive Workshop offered several modules on the application of management techniques in the delivery of intellectual property services. CIPO staff, a WIPO official, and two Intellectual Property Coaches delivered presentations.
CIPO has provided, in cooperation with WIPO, the following free patent services to developing countries:
o Patent search and examination reports for developing countries, upon request from WIPO (ICSES);
o State-of-the-art patent searches under the WIPO Patent Information Searches (WPIS) for developing countries; and
o Paper copies of relevant Canadian patent documents identified by WIPO patent searches.

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

http://laws.justice.gc.ca/en/P-4/index.html

contain the Annual Report of the Office

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/eic/site/cipointernet-internetopic.nsf/eng/h_wr00094.html

contain patent-related news regarding the Office

http://www.cipo.ic.gc.ca/patents

X. Other relevant matters

 

1.Classification is allotting one or more classification symbols (e.g., IPC symbols) to a patent application, either before or during search and examination, which symbols are then published with the patent application.

 

2.Preclassification is allotting an initial broad classification symbol (e.g., IPC class or subclass, or administrative unit) to a patent application, using human or automated means for internal administrative purposes (e.g., routing an application to the appropriate examiner).  Usually preclassification is applied by the administration of an office.

 

3.Reclassification is the reconsideration and usually the replacement of one or more previously allotted classification symbols to a patent document, following a revision and the entry into force of a new version of the Classification system (e.g., the IPC).  The new symbols are available on patent databases.