Annual Technical Report 2007 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Republic of Moldova (SCIT/ATR/TM/2007/MD)
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I. Evolution of registration activities
During the year 2007, the AGEPI received 6544 applications for registration of trade and/or service marks, which constitutes 106,5% in comparison with the previous year.
Beginning with the year 2000, the number of applications for the registration of product or service marks continuously increased. In 2007, the AGEPI received 6544 applications, with 400 (6.5%) more than in the previous year. Of the total number of applications, 2282 (34.9%) were filed under the national procedure and 4262 (65.1%) under the international one, including 737 (11.3%) under the Madrid Agreement and 3525 (53.9%) under the Protocol relating to that Agreement.
The number of applications filed by the national and foreign applicants under the national procedure and under the Protocol relating to the Madrid Agreement remained nearly unchanged compared with the previous year, and that of those filed under the Madrid Agreement and under the international procedure as a whole increased, respectively, by 12.5 and 10 percent. At the same time, due to the active submission of applications under the international procedure, the total number of those filed by the foreign applicants increased by 8% in comparison with the previous year and attained the number of 5012. Thus, the national applicants keep 23.4% and the foreign ones – 76.6% of the sum total of filed applications. Of the sum total of applications filed in the year under review under the national procedure, 1532 (67%) proceed from national applicants and 750 (33%) – from foreign ones. The majority of applications submitted by the national applicants - 1295 (84.5%) – were filed by natural or legal persons having domicile in the city Chisinau, 40 (2.6%) – in the ATU Gagauzia, 34 (2.2%) – in the city Balti, and 173 (11.3%) applications – in other administrative and territorial unities of the republic, there being emphasized the Orhei, Cahul, Hincesti, Edinet, Stefan-Voda districts.
Applicants from 55 countries filed applications under the national procedure, more active being the legal and natural persons from the United States of America, the Russian Federation, the Ukraine, Switzerland and Germany. Under the Madrid System applications came from applicants from 53 countries, most of them proceeding from Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Russian Federation, Hungary and France. Altogether, in 2007 there were filed applications for the registration of trademarks by applicants from 78 countries, the largest weight being kept by those from the Republic of Moldova.
In the applications filed under the national procedure the most frequently were designated the following classes of the International Classification of Goods and Services (ICGS): cl. 35 (advertising; business management etc.) – 1087 applications; cl. 05 (pharmaceutical, veterinary and sanitary preparations etc.) – 346 applications; cl. 33 (alcoholic beverages (except beers)) – 311 applications; cl. 30 (sugar, flour and preparations made from cereals etc.) – 284 applications; cl. 29 (meat, fish, milk, poultry, preserved fruits and vegetables etc.) – 254 applications.
At the same time, there is noticed a difference between the classes of goods and services designated in the applications filed by the national applicants and the foreign ones: if the first claim services of cl. 35 in 60% of applications, the latter ones – only in 20%; if in 30% of the applications filed by the foreign applicants are claimed goods from cl. 05, then those filed by the national applicants are claimed only in 7%; goods of cl. 33 are claimed in 15% of the applications of the national applicants and in 10% of the foreign ones, of applications in their turn prefer cl. 30 in 20% of applications, and the national applicants – only in 9% of applications.
Also the national applicants unlike the foreign ones claim more frequently the classes of services than those of goods. In the applications filed under the international procedure the most preferable classes of ISGS were: cl. 05 – 1274 applications; cl. 09 – 700 applications; cl. 03 – 636 applications; cl. 35 – 632 applications; cl. 25 – 584 applications etc.
For the space of the year 2007 there were examined 6280 applications for the registration of trademarks in all, with 1039 (19.8%) more than in the previous year, of these – 2497 applications filed under the national procedure and 3783 applications filed under the Madrid System, or by 31.4% and, respectively, 12.6% more. As a result of examination of the trademark applications, 85.1% of those filed under the national procedure and 91.2% of those filed under the Madrid System were accepted totally or partially. In the previous year these numbers constituted 82.3% and 91.1%, respectively. 71% of the rejections relating to the applications filed under the national procedure and 84% of those relating to the applications filed under the Madrid System were emitted on the ground of Art. 7(4)a) of the Law of the Republic of Moldova No. 588/1993 on Trademarks and Appellations of Origin (signs which are identical or similar, to the point of misleading, to trademarks protected on behalf of another person). 9% and, respectively, 6% of rejections were emitted on the ground of Article 7(2) (signs which are deceitful or liable to mislead etc.). 6% and, respectively, 4% of rejections were emitted on the ground of non-possession of a distinctive character of signs (Art. 7(1)2)), compared with 10.6% and 5.9% in the previous year. These results demonstrate the tendency of decrease in the difference between the quality of the applications filed under the national procedure and under the international one, due to the increase in the level of knowledge of the procedures relating to the trademark registration by the national applicants.
In the period under review, AGEPI – as receiving office of the country of origin – checked and transmitted to WIPO 38 applications for the international registration of trademarks under the Madrid System, with 32 (45.7%) less than in the previous year. Since 1997, when the first application was filed, and up to the end of the year 2007, 304 international applications were submitted via AGEPI.
Among the frequently designated for protection in the applications filed by the national applicants are the Russian Federation (240), the Ukraine (261), Belarus (226), Romania (186), Kazakstan (180), Latvia (143), Lithuania (135), Estonia (117). Most of international registrations, having as country of origin the Republic of Moldova (202), refer to cl. 33, 65 – tocl. 35, 35 – to cl. 32, 29 – to cl. 29, 28 – to cl. 30. After all, these data reflect the main fields of activity of the autochthonous producers, as well as countries in which they manifest economic interests.
As in the previous years, parallel to the applications for the registration of new trademarks, in 2007 there also were filed applications for the renewal of registration of product and/or service trademarks, of which term of validity expired in the period under review. Altogether there were filed 2374 renewal applications, with 673 (39.6%) more in comparison with the year 2006. The great majority – 2217 (93.4%) – were filed by foreign applicants, prevalently (1869) for renewal of international registrations, and 348 – for renewal of national trademarks. The national owners applied for the renewal of 157 trademarks. 1259 trademark registration certificates were issued in the year under review, with 60 (4.5%) less than in the previous year. The national owners obtained 792 (63%) certificates and the foreign ones – 467 (37%). The number of certificates issued to the national owners decreased as compared with 2006 by 184 (18.9%) and of those issued to the foreign owners increased by 124 (36.2%).
As in the case of applications for registration, the majority of trademark registration certificates, issued to the national owners, is kept by those having their domicile or headquarters in the city Chisinau – 79%. The other administrative and territorial unities are classified as follows: the city Balti – 4%, the ATU Gagauzia – 2%, the Ialoveni and Causeni districts
– for 1%, and the others – 13% as a whole. In the year under review, there were issued 427 trademark renewal certificates, of which 164 (38.4%) to national owners and 263 (61.6%) to foreign owners. The number of issued renewal certificates decreased by 95 (18%), being attested a decrease by 131 (33%) of the certificates issued to foreign owners and, at the same time, an increase by 36 (28%) of the certificates issued to national owners.
The quota of renewed certificates constitutes 48% of the national certificates of which term of validity expired in 2007, being by 17 per cent smaller than in 2006.
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
The main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information are:
- The Official Bulletin of Industrial Property Protection (BOPI);
- The Trademark Register;
- National Register of Applications for the Registration of Trademarks
BOPI including Sections IV and V with information on trademarks and appellations of origin, from January 2000 onwards is available online via our AGEPI web site at www.agepi.md in portable document format (PDF).
Section IV of BOPI contains:
- Examined applications for trademark registration;
- List of registered trademarks;
- List of renewed trademarks.
Section V contains:
- Examined applications for appellations of origin of goods;
- List of registered appellations of origin.
Section VII contains various types of notices referring to all amendments occurred to the legal status of the protected industrial property objects (List of amendments, List of assignment agreements, Errata, etc), the half-yearly subject indexes of registered trademarks.
The AGEPI maintains a complete history of its national trademark files in paper form.
In 2003 began the creation of the electronic archive, 15000 paper files have been already scanned.
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
The main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information are:
- The Official Bulletin of Industrial Property Protection (BOPI);
- The Trademark Register;
- National Register of Applications for the Registration of Trademarks
BOPI including Sections IV and V with information on trademarks and appellations of origin, from January 2000 onwards is available online via our AGEPI web site at www.agepi.md in portable document format (PDF).
Section IV of BOPI contains:
- Examined applications for trademark registration;
- List of registered trademarks;
- List of renewed trademarks.
Section V contains:
- Examined applications for appellations of origin of goods;
- List of registered appellations of origin.
Section VII contains various types of notices referring to all amendments occurred to the legal status of the protected industrial property objects (List of amendments, List of assignment agreements, Errata, etc), the half-yearly subject indexes of registered trademarks.
The AGEPI maintains a complete history of its national trademark files in paper form.
In 2003 began the creation of the electronic archive, 15000 paper files have been already scanned.
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)
During 2007 the AGEPI applied:
International Classification of Goods and Services (Nice Classification), the nine-th edition; (as from 01.01.2007)
International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification), the fifth edition.
three - digit INID codes in accordance with the WIPO Standard ST.60.
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
To check the conformity of goods and services to the Nice Classification and of the figurative elements to the Vienna Classification, the AGEPI uses the electronic classification system on the CD ROMARIN and electronic version of classification translated into Romanian.
IV. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep
The examiner’s search files are the following:
• paper-case with the list of signs protected under Article 6 ter of the Paris Convention not included in the “Article 6 ter CD”;
• list of geographical indications which are protected under a bilateral or regional agreement in respect of the protection of geographical indications;
• list of names of plant varieties registered in the Republic of Moldova.
The following e-cardfiles are used:
• card - file of appellations of origin grouped in numerical order;.
At the disposal of examiners, there are foreign databases on CD-ROM (ROMARIN, Russian Federation, USAMark, and Community Trade Mark Bulletin), Trademark Gazettes of different countries and via the Internet the Madrid Express Database – data collection hosted by WIPO. From October 10, 2002, the AGEPI has at its disposal the CD-ROM with INN from OMS, which is used for search purposes. The examiners also use different browsers for search in Internet, dictionaries, atlases and electronic encyclopedias.
Moreover, the manual paper search files consist of encyclopedias, dictionaries, special books, periodicals, and a number of other lists and sources.
Both the examiner’s search files and documentation at the library are updated on a regular basis.
V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems
In the period under review the AGEPI elaborated and improved the following information products:
• program for registration procedure management and program for statistical accounting of trademarks filed according to the international procedure under the Madrid System, as well as program for data processing in the XML format;
• program for searching in the database “National Trademarks” including registered trademarks, valid in the Republic of Moldova, using the WEB technology.
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
The office library functions simultaneously as an in-house and public library. The AGEPI library is open to the public during 5 days (except Saturday and Sunday) from 9:00 to 16:00.
The Library Soft “IRBIS”, for acquisition processes automation, formation of electronic catalogue “Books” and library administration, continue to be implemented in the AGEPI Library.
The Library Soft “IRBIS” formation of card index “IP ART” of actual articles in the field of IP from periodicals.
Collection management, preservation
Due to new acquisitions, the electronic catalog of the Library collection was completed in 2007 with bibliographic descriptions of 367 books (DB “BOOKS”), 305 articles from periodical editions in the intellectual property field (DB “IP ART”) and 86 scientific reports (DB “Scientific Results”), it reflecting by the end of the year under review with 6582 materials (4302 books, 1560 articles, 720 scientific reports).
In the year under review, the digital library consisted of 31 textual databases and 17 bibliographic and reference databases with a volume of 23,74 mln of documents, and the collection of specialized literature included 40252 copies of books, journals, dictionaries, encyclopedias in the technical-scientific, legal, financial-economic, informational fields etc.
On December 31, 2007, the collection of the AGEPI Library counted 23,8 mln of documents on electronic carrier, copies of books, periodical journals, on paper carrier, including: 4728 copies of books and booklets, 39232 copies of serial and periodical publications (journals, newspapers, official bulletins), 23744839 copies of documents on electronic carrier, and 7843 copies of national documents (patent applications, patents, utility models, plant variety).
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)
Rendering of methodological assistance and provision of library-information services constituted priority trends in the activity of the AGEPI Library. The AGEPI Library has a general reading room and a specialized PC room. The total area of the AGEPI Library is 125 sq.m.
Visits to the AGEPI Library and services offered to all categories of readers are free of charge (except copying the documents from CD-ROM/DVD-ROM on paper or on CD / ROM, copying the documents from the Library paper Collection).
In 2007, the AGEPI Library registered 372 new readers, the sum total being of 996 readers, including 193 employees of the AGEPI. The beneficiaries of the AGEPI Library covers inventors, researchers, engineers and managers from different branches of the national economy, professors etc.
Free of charge access to the information on national trademarks with instruction on a legal status is given to users on not search database “Register of Marks” within the PC room.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information
The AGEPI Library cooperates intensively with 56 territorial Libraries to which the IP information (official bulletins) and other literature in this field is furnished regularly. In the year under review were intensified the relations of collaboration with the university and public libraries. In the IP promotion activity there were mobilized libraries from the district centers situated in different zones of the republic.
By the end of the year 2007, the AGEPI Library concluded cooperation agreements with 32 district libraries, 2 – municipal, 5 – with republican statute, 9 – university and 3 specialized libraries. Alongside of the information assistance, organization and carrying out of IP promotion activities, one of the main trends is creation and systematic completion of the document collections in the IP field of those institutions. In that sense, 15 sets (250 copies) of AGEPI publications were transmitted to them as donation via the Book Foundation.
The AGEPI Library contributed to the dissemination of IP information by organization round tables:
• “Library and Intellectual Property” organized in cooperation with the chair “Librarianship and Informational Assistance” from the SUM, oj the occasion of the Librarian’s Day;
• “Library and Intellectual Property in the vision of the information promoters”;
• Representative exhibition of AGEPI publications and launching of the publication “Official Bulletin of Copyright and Related” at the XVI-th edition of the “International Book Fair”;
• Launching of the II-nd edition of the republican Competition “Library – partner in the promotion of intellectual property”;
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)
In the year 2007, the AGEPI intensified its activity of international cooperation directed towards integration in the world and European intellectual property system, representing the Republic of Moldova in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), other interstate and international organizations.
Thus, AGEPI specialists participated in the reunions of the WIPO working groups and committees of experts, in the seminars, schools, trainings and conferences in the field.
In the period from 24 September -3 October, 2007, the delegation of the Republic of Moldova participated in the 43-rd Round of assemblies of the WIPO Member States.
One person obtained a scholarship within the framework of the Master Program, offered by the WIPO Academy in cooperation with the Faculty of Law of the Turin University, and participated in the summer school of the WIPO Academy. Another 6 persons participated in the up-grading courses and seminars organized by WIPO in the member states.
During the year 2007, the AGEPI staff participated in 56 international events, among which the most relevant to trademark activities are the following:
1. The 3rd session of the Ad-hoc working group on the legal development of the Madrid System for the International registration of Marks, WIPO;
2. The 17th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT);
3. WIPO Training Seminar on Madrid System for the International Registration of Marks;
4. The 4th session of the Ad-hoc working group on the legal development of the Madrid System for the International registration of Marks, WIPO;
5. Study visit to the Office for Harmonization of Internal Market (OHIM) on the national legislation harmonization with the European legislation in the field of trademarks and industrial design protection;
6. The 18th session of the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT);
On the basis of the Joint Action Program AGEPI- the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks (OSIM) there was realized a series of common activities, as well as the exchange of experience, working visits, seminars of which we should, also, mention the bilateral ad-hoc meeting in Chisinau. For the space of the year 2007, 13 specialists participated in 3 thematic seminars organized by the OSIM:
1. Seminar “Study cases in application of trademark rights” and “Protection of community mark and community design”, organized in Cap Aurora;
2. International Seminar on Protection of Community Trademarks and Designs” organized in Suceava;
3. Seminar on the protection of community trademark and design, organized in Iaşi.
From the other hand, the AGEPI hosted 24 specialists of OSIM who participated in 7 manifestations organized in the Republic of Moldova 94 symposia and conferences, 2 exchanges of experience, one international exhibition).
With a view to promote the national intellectual property system, for the space of the year 2007 the AGEPI participated in 18 national exhibitions. Of the most important national exhibitions in which the AGEPI participated with informational stands should be mentioned “Made in Moldova”, “Food&Drinks”, “ExpoVin Moldova”.
In the year under review, the Republican Competition “Trademark of the Year” , initiated by the Chamber of the local Commerce and Industry and the AGEPI, had for an object the identification and promotion of marketing performance strategies in the field of creation and promotion of trademarks, formation of a favorable business image of Moldova abroad, emphasis of the successful trademarks rating on the Moldovan market and of their role in business.