Annual Technical Report 2005 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Czech Republic (SCIT/ATR/TM/2005/CZ)
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I. Evolution of registration activities
The trend of submitting great number of applications for registrations remained stable. In 2005 the Office received 10 252 (10 407 in 2004) national trademark applications, 9 279 (9365 in 2004) of them were submitted by domestic applicants and 973 (1 042 in 2004) by foreign applicants. 5 987 (6 510 in 2004) international trademarks were registered in accordance with the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks and/or the Protocol to this Agreement with designation of the Czech Republic. 596 applications for international registration of trademarks abroad were submitted via the Office in 2005. The procedures resulted in registration of 9 013 (8 658 in 2004) trademarks and acknowledgement of protection for the Czech Republic in 6 990 (7 145 in 2004) international trademarks in 2005.
In 2005 the registration procedure time period ranged from 6 to 9 months from the date of submitting the trademark registration application. This time period included formal and substantive examination of the applications, technical preparation for publication, threemonth statutory time limit for opposition and registration time. Thanks to shorter procedure time there has been a decrease in the number of pending applications. While in 2004 there were on average 8 817 pending applications, in 2005 there were only 7 732 of them.
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
Information concerning the Czech trademarks was published in the Official Bulletin, Part B, of the IPO CZ (Vestnik UPV), issued monthly in 250 pieces. The Bulletin contained the following types of announcements:
Survey of the INID codes for identification of bibliographic data
Survey of the chapters
Codes of the states
Refused or partially refused trademark applications before publication
Survey of the published trademark applications
Published trademark applications
Refused or partially refused trademark applications after publication
Rejected oppositions
Survey of the trademark registrations without change in relation to published applications
Registrations of trademarks without change in relation to published applications
Survey of the trademark registrations with change in relation to published applications
Registrations of trademarks with change in relation to published applications
Recording of licence contracts concerning trademarks
Recording of licence contracts concerning internationally registered trademarks
Trademarks cancelled and declared invalid
Survey of the renewals of trademark registrations
Renewals of trademark registrations
Laps of trademarks due to expiration of the period of protection
Surrender of the right to the trademark
Changes in the wording/reproduction of the trademarks and the list of goods and services
Changes in the ownership of the trademarks
Changes in the ownership of the trademarks for a part of goods and services
Amendments in the data concerning trademark holders
Excuse of failure to comply with a time limit
Other relevant data and official rectifications
Appellations of origin/geographical indications
Survey of the published applications of the coloured trademarks
Published trademark applications - coloured reproductions
As from No. 1/2000, the Official Bulletin has been available on the web site of the IPO CZ as an electronic book in PDF format.
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of trademark information
The 8th edition of the Nice Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks has been used since January 01, 2002 for the purposes of trademark filing and registration.
Every trademark application shall contain a list of goods or services for which the mark is to be registered. Goods and services are listed in sequence of classes of the Nice Classification and the appropriate number of this classification is mentioned.
The 5th edition of the Vienna Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks has been used.
In order to assist the applicants in the orientation in the above mentioned trademark classifications, classification systems were displayed on the web site of the IPO CZ (www.upv.cz), too.
IV. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep
A manual search file is not built nor used since 1996. The trademark register is kept in electronic form only. Trademark bulletins of foreign offices, ROMARIN CDs, DVDs from WIPO and Community Trademarks Bulletin on CDs from OHIM were received.
V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems
In January 2004, the standard operation of the new internal information system for application proceedings and for keeping registers of subject matters of industrial rights (IS SyPP) was started. The aim of the project was to create a modifiable and extendable information system over one unified database and to replace two originally separated systems with different conceptions, designed separately for patents and utility models and separately for trademarks. The system is equipped with electronic archiving of incoming and outgoing files. The system makes it possible to processes data of proceedings for the database and for publishing in the Office Bulletin.
An information system accessible for public is available on the web page of the IPO CZ
(http://isdvapl.upv.cz/pls/portal30/oz.ozfrm) and allows its users to search within the national trademark database, CTM Online, Madrid Express and other free of charge TM databases of national offices.
The trademark examiners and clients of the public reading room can use a so-called common search triple interface comprising a database of not only Czech trademarks and international trademarks valid in the territory of the Czech Republic, but also a database of Community trademarks registered by the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market.
VI. Administration of trademark services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering trademarks, assisting clients with search procedures, obtaining official publications and registry extracts)
Trademark information services for the public are provided within the Trademark Information Center (information concerning trademark applications filing, telephone queries, procedure information etc), in the public reading room (various kinds of trademark searches), common questions can be addressed to the helpdesk (helpdesk@upv.cz) or on the basis of orders (trademark searches). In 2005, 1598 trademark searches for the public were carried out.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information
Foreign official bulletins in paper or electronic form were received on exchange basis.
The IPO CZ participated in the CD-ROM TRACES project (electronic data sending) and in the Project for Eastern
Europe of the Compu-Mark company (electronic data sending).
VIII. Matters concerning education and training including technical assistance to developing countries
Various courses and seminars were organized for the students and representatives of SMEs or research institutions; Groups of university students were accepted in the premises of the IPO CZ.
In 2004, the two years study course of industrial property rights was conducted within the Office's own educational facility - the Industrial Property Training Institute.
The IPO CZ presented its information activities and products at the following exhibitions and trade fairs:
- International Machinery Trade Fair (Brno, CZ)
- MACH 2005 (Prague, CZ)
- FOR ARCH 2005 (Prague, CZ)
- Innovation 2005 (Prague, CZ)
- IENA - Exhibition of Inventions and Innovations (Nurnberg, DE)
- Exhibition of Inventions (Geneva, CH)
- PATLIB 2005 (Vilamoura, PT)
- EPO Patent Information Conference 2005 (Budapest, HU)
The IPO CZ issued the Industrial Property Journal every months
IX. Other relevant matters