Annual Technical Report 2007 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Croatia (SCIT/ATR/TM/2007/HR)
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.
I. Evolution of registration activities
Changes experienced in terms of application filings and registrations with respect to the previous year
Since this is the first ATR-TM report SIPO Croatia presents the breakdown of registration activities for the last 5 years
Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year
In the last few years the decrease of the share of non/resident applicants for the national registration continues (non residents filed 938 applications or 39% i.e. 4% less comparing to the previous year).
At the same time a slight increase of international applications and registrations with the HR designation compared to the previous year i.e.1% (n.b. Croatia joined the Protocol on January 23, 2004).
The decrease of the refusals of the international applications per year continues due to the approximation to the practice of the European Union in ex officio examination of trademarks (0,9% less than in 2006).
The majority of applications were filed in the class 9 and 35 followed by the classes 16, 30, 41 and 42.
In 2007, the Act on Amendments to the Trademarks Act (OG 76/07) was enacted for the purpose of further aligning the Croatian trademarks legislation with the acquis communautaire. It has been provided for that the national exhaustion of the trademark right shall be replaced by the Union exhaustion thereof, as well as that the effects of a Community trademark shall extend to the territory of the Republic of Croatia as from the day of acceptance of the Republic of Croatia into the European Union. A Board of Appeal, as a body of second instance, has been introduced and, as from 1 June 2008, has been dealing with the appeals filed against the decisions issued by the Office. A new Ordinance on Trademarks (OG 117/07) has also been enacted. By the end of 2007, the Office published the Trademark Examination Guidelines the purpose of which is to provide support not only to trademark examiners but also to other users of the intellectual property system, engaged in the trademark registration procedure.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to trademarks
Monthly official Gazette published on web pages of SIPO Croatia provides statistics: http://www.dziv.hr/webcontent/file_library/izvori_inf/glasnik_tablica.htm
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
Publishing, printing, copying techniques
Since the 2006 Official Gazette of the Office (joint Gazette including data on all typesys of industrial property) is published monthly on paper and on digital carrier (upon order), and current issue (but not archive) is available in electronic form free of charge on Office's web site(www.dziv.hr).
Official Gazette contains the following published information on trademarks: Trade Marks Applications Filed, Trade Marks Registered, The Withdrawal or Restriction of the Application, The Invalidity of the Trade Marks, The Revocation of the Trade Marks, The Renewal of Registration of Trade Marks.
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information
Office notices are published in the Official Gazette of the Office (paper form and on-line), as well as on the Office’s web site.
Mass storage media and microforms used
The bibliographic data are stored in Ingres 2.6 database and trademark images are stored in a LINUX network file directory.
The Office maintains a complete history of its trademark files in paper form and all information for trademarks applied from 2000 to date in electronic form.
Word processing and office automation
All staff uses MS-Word 2000 for word-processing that is operating in a Windows XP Professional environment.
Outgoing letters and SIPO’s gazette are fully automated and generated in MS Word.
Techniques used for the generation of trademark information (printing, recording, photocomposing, etc.)
The bibliographic data are stored in the SIPO’s database via the application “Trademark’s Register” (which is developed in INGRES OpenROAD application development tool). Trademark images are stored on network discs (which are LINUX file directories).
Output documents and SIPO’s gazette are produced from automated MS Word templates.
Almost each outgoing letter is a MS Word template that consists of permanent text. Data, which are changeable and depend on application/publication number are retrieved from the SIPO’s database via ODBC (Open DataBase Connectivity). A trademark’s image is imported from the network disc.
All publishing data in SIPO's Gazette are formatted and followed by the INID codes according to the WIPO standard ST.60.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online trademark gazettes and to other sources of trademark information, including download of bulk trademark data
Current issue of the Office Gazette (joint Gazette including data on all typesys of industrial property) is available at:
http://www.dziv.hr/en/webcontent/file_library/inf_sources/glasnik_tablica.htm
Free of charge searchable data base containing published information on trademarks applied for or registered is available at:
http://www.dziv.hr/DigitalLibrary/default.asp?izb=en
A range of search options is available, including Date of Application, Proprietor, Attorney, Mark, Nice Class, Vienna class.
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of trademark information
Classification and reclassification activities; Classification systems used, e.g., International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification), International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification), other classification (please indicate whether goods and services for the registration of marks and whether the figurative elements of marks are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification(s) is (are) used)
The Nice Classification Systems of Goods and Services, 9th edition, is used for the registration of marks. Our Classification specialist checks if the correct classification and wording is used.
For figurative marks Vienna classification (5th edition) is applied by office staff at the time of application. Marks are scanned and the Vienna classification allocated.
Use of electronic classification systems to check the classification symbols furnished by an applicant and which are contained in the lists of goods and/or services
No electronic classification systems are used to check the lists of goods and services provided by applicants. Classification is checked only manually by the Office specialists.
Obligation for applicants to use pre-defined terms of the classification applied
The applicants are not obliged to use pre-defined terms of the classification system.
Bibliographic data and processing
Bibliographic data elements and classifications are searchable. The images are displayed together with these data elements.
This search is available in-house and via Internet
IV. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep
File Building
Trademark applications are made in paper forms that are available on our web site page. Cannot be filed electronically for the time being.
Applications are built into paper case files and kept in the office area until the procedure for registration is finished. Afterwards they are stored in the archive area in the same building.
Updating
The search files contain HR domestic marks; designations to the HR under the Madrid system are updated monthly. All searches performed by examiners are completed using an automated search system.
V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems
In-house systems (online/offline)
Trademark search system is executed by electronic means. The database includes active national trademarks and international trademarks in Croatia.
External databases
Access to the database ROMARIN and MADRID express is available and also used for information services.
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
Applications are developed in INGRES OpenROAD. SIPO uses an INGRES database. An application “Trademark’s Register” is used for filing all bibliographic data concerning the particular trademark. All trademark changes (change of ownership, change of name, address, licence, etc.) are recorded and are maintained by Trademark Register user interface.
Since year 2000 SIPO has developed its own document management system in electronic form that covers office needs (all incoming and outgoing documents have been scanned in Adobe Acrobat).
International trademark data in XML format are weekly loaded from the WIPO’s ftp site. After processing data are available through the application “MECA”. Those data are used for examination and publication purposes.
MS Word is used for automatic generation of output documents. MS Excel is used for (automatic) generation of specific reports, which are used, for annual SIPO’s report, WIPO statistics and for other purposes (improving trademark processes).
Published trademark data (applications/grants) can be searched at the SIPO’s Internet site
http://www.dziv.hr/digitallibrary through the SIPO's web-server application (MS Windows 2003 server and mySQL database).
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used
- 10Mbit/s leased line used for Internet connection, CISCO Network Equipment (LAN based on Fast Ethernet - 1000/100/10 Mbit/s).
- MICROSOFT environment:
- Servers: PC/WIN Server 2003 St. Ed. ; Fujitsu Siemens-Primergy RX 300/ Win SERVER 2003 St. Ed.
- Workstations: PC Pentium IV with WIN XP PROF. or WIN 2000 PROF.
- MS Exchange 2003 Server Enterprise, ISA 2004 ( proxy ).
- Linux ( SUSE Distribution - Enterprise Server 8 ) - two cluster application: database and file sharing. Two server nodes ( type of cluster is fail over ) on Fujitsu Siemens-Primergy RX 600 Servers. The cluster software is FujitsuSiemens Primecluster ver. 4.1 A30 for Linux.
- SAN (storage area network) connected with fiber channel switches to server nodes and backup device. SAN is consists of two FiberCAT CX500 (EMC ) devices. Each of them has two-service processor and 10 disks in
RAID-5 system (9 x 146 Gb FC disks + 1 x 146 Gb FC hotspare disk).
- Backup software is Backbone NetVault 7.1. Backup device is a MTC – 9084-221 FC (tape library) with two LTO 2 tape drives and 21 slot tape robot connected to fiber channel switch. Also the library offers a mail slot for exchanging offsite/onsite tapes. Total capacity installed on MTC
library is 4 Tb of uncompressed data.
VI. Administration of trademark information products and 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)
Planning, administration, automation, security
SIPO Croatia offers free information services on general legal matters, registration procedures, status of registered trademarks (national as well as international). The inquires can be made by phone, at the SIPO premises or by e-mail. Registry extracts are available upon request and payable. Copies of the file contents are available upon written request and payable.
Collection management, preservation
The trademark search collection is managed in electronic form. Data are refreshed at the end of the month (the publication date). A structured backup regime is in place to ensure preservation of the information.
Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and trademark information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)
Trademark information services for the public are provided through the Office’s Intellectual Property Information Center (INCENTIV) providing (among others) information concerning trademark applications filing, telephone queries, procedure information etc. ,and the public reading room where free of charge search of non-commercial trademark information is available). Information can be requested also by e-mail (info@dziv.hr) . Commercial trademerk search services (upon charge) by Office specialist are also available upon order.
State Intellectual Office of the Republic of Croatia is a partner in the CETMOS service offering trade mark search in the national and international trade mark registers of 9 countries, i.e. Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well as in the register of Community trade marks valid in the territory of the European Union. CETMOS service is available upon a single order, covering all the participating states, and operated under short deadlines and a favourable schedule of fees.
Navigation:
Homepage: http://www.dziv.hr
Information on Commercial Search Services:
http://www.dziv.hr/en/webcontent/file_library/inf_services/searching_serv_LNK.htm
Searchable free of charge Database:
http://www.dziv.hr/DigitalLibrary/default.asp?izb=en
General information on trademarks and related services:
INCENTIV – Intellectual Property Information Centre
Phone: +385 1 610 98 25; fax: +385 1 611 20 17; e-mail: info@dziv.hr
http://www.dziv.hr/webcontent/file_library/inf_usluge/Incentiv.htm
URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of trademark applications
Not applicable, no electronic filing of trademark applications is available.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and registration procedures related to trademarks; opposition and appeal procedures related to trademarks; etc.
A/m information available from:
http://www.dziv.hr/en/default.aspx?pArtID=47&selection=1 (in English) http://www.dziv.hr/default.aspx?pArtID=61&selection=1 (in Croatian)
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., trademark search service(s) and trademark databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them
Information on Commercial Search Services:
http://www.dziv.hr/en/webcontent/file_library/inf_services/searching_serv_LNK.htm
Searchable free of charge Database:
http://www.dziv.hr/DigitalLibrary/default.asp?izb=en
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information
International or regional cooperation in the exchange of trademark information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes
SIPO regularly exchanges official gazettes (either in paped or on digital carrier) with 30+ industrial property offices around the world.
Since 2007 SIPO Croatia pariticipates at “CETMOS” service that offers trade mark search in the national and international trade mark registers of 9 countries, i.e. Austria, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Croatia, Poland, Hungary, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, as well as in the register of Community trade marks valid in the territory of the European Union. CETMOS service is available upon a single order, covering all the participating states, and operated under short deadlines and a favourable schedule of fees.
Exchange of machine-readable information
No exchange of machine readable information on nationally registered trademarks.
VIII. Matters concerning education and training, 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.)
As a part of its operations SIPO regularly organizes different promotional activities on all IP issues (including trademarks) . This particularly relates to organization of information stands on different public events and related advertizing.
In 2007 SIPO Croatia participated with an information stand on following specialized fairs held in Croatia:
49th International crafts fair 2007, Zagreb fair, April
3rd International fair of new technologies and products, Rijeka, April
5th International fair of inventions, new technologies and products, ARCA 2007, Zagreb fair, September
12th International tool and equipment fair, SASO 2007, Split, October
32nd Croatian salon of innovations with international participation, INOVA 2007, Zagreb fair, November
Training courses for national and foreign participants
Study visits for SIPO staff to the European Trademark and Design Offices organized within the EU assistance program:
NPO trade mark & design training period in Hungarian Patent Office, April 2007
Trademark registration procedure in OHIM, Alicante, Spain, May 2007
Boards of Appeal: Trademarks and industrial designs in OHIM, Alicante, May 2007
Search of trademark information and documentation in Denmark NPTO, June 2007
Seminars coorganized by SIPO Croatia Zagreb within the EU assistance program:
IPR legislation upgrade in 2007 – seminar held by SIPO Croatia for the general public (Zagreb, November 2007)
Trademark examination procedure, opposition and cancellation procedure
(Seminar held by OHIM experts for the SIPO Croatia Trade mark and Cancellation Division, Zagreb, December 2007)
SIPO is currently in the proces of establishing its own IP training programs (primarily for national participants)
Assistance to developing countries (sending consultants and experts, receiving trainees from developing countries, etc.)
No related activities in year 2007.
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 trademarks
http://www.dziv.hr/en/default.aspx?pArtID=58&selection=5
contain the Annual Report of the Office
http://www.dziv.hr/webcontent/file_library/izvori_inf/
Office’s web-site: http://www.dziv.hr/
contain trademark-related news regarding the Office
News are available at the Office web site on the “news page” http://www.dziv.hr/