Page History

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E-filing, new Espacenet, QaS, WIPO Patent OCR, WIPO Publish, IPCPub, IPC translating in the IPCR online environment

Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes

National patent applications in 2018

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TOTAL: 5912,+21.7% compared to 2017 (4856)

The inflow of patent applications filed in the course of 2018 by domestic institutes and faculties has increased for 19% in comparison to 2017 and was the highest in the last five years, whereby 46% applications filed by scientific and research institutions in the field of chemistry and chemical technology and 45% in  the field of information and communication technologies. The number of the registered patents in 2018 has increased for 21% in comparison to 2017 and this been three times larger than in 2012. Apart from the mentioned, despite the reduced number of employees in the tasks  of patent protection, the backlog of applications has been reduced for 10% in comparison to 2017.

In the course of 2018, time has been reduced for the grant of patent protection for 10% in  comparison to 2017, and the Office has been recognized by the EPO as a example of the national  institution successfully implementing and contributing to the development of the EPOQUENet program for state of the art searches. In the framework of the program of the bilateral cooperation  with the EPO, in May 2018, a seminar has been organized lasting for two days about patents in the field of pharmacy where the experiences of the experts from the EPO and IPO in the field of patent protection in pharmacy have been exchanged as well as the experiences in the domestic economy and science. Apart from that, the patent lawyers were engaged on the project of INPADOC  administered by the EPO, with the aim to unite the reviews of legal status of national patents which  contribute to the improvement of the business ambiance through Europe. The improvement of the business atmosphere in Serbia was contributed to by the enforcement of the Law on the   Amendments of the Law on Patents, adopted by the National Parliament in the December of 2018. It simplified the administration of patent and petty patent registers and made precise the procedure for the request referring to the certificates for supplementary protection of medicaments and means for the protection of plants. Thanks to the active participation of patent experts in the working groups of the World Intellectual Property Organization, the IPO, in 2018, simplified the approach for the new technologies through the search of patent documentation in such a way that the International Patent Classification has been translated into Serbian and placed on the web site of the IPO in its latest edition – IPC 2018.01. Also, at the beginning of the March 2018, it has been enabled to file the international patent classification (PCT applications ) in the electronic form, for which it acts as the receiving office by the implementation of the e-PCT portal.

Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.

Website of the IPO is updated daily with the news in Serbian language and in English only those of greater importance. The news webpage is the homepage of IPO website www.zis.gov.rs

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Helpdesk contact – Education and Information Center: info.eic@zis.gov.rs 

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs

IPO Serbia has a public library where all persons can get the consultancy in person for patent filing from the patent examiners. Through Education and Information center and the seminars it delivers to the participants, information on patent system and the proceedings as well as patent drafting are the topics which are included in basic and advanced training modules. Each month on third Thursday, Open Door event is organized for customer’s consultancy beside the opportunity to have them every day on regular basis. Open door: 12 occasions, 59 customers visited IPO.

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FAQ on patent proceedings: http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/most-frequently-asked.60.html

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

Patent and petty patent registers and SPC database are available in the electronic form since 2014. Bibliographic data and legal status of the patent application filed starting with year 1994 are available in the register, with links to the published patent documents.
The full application dossier in electronic form is not publicly available. All published patent documents since Office’s foundation 1921 with few gaps in early years are available at Publication server and can be searched with all possible criteria within the MIMOSA search software.

Online patent databases and tools are available at the following link: http://www.zis.gov.rs/databases/patent-databases.419.html 

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), reclassification³ activities; classification systems used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)); matters concerning indexing of patent information

IPO uses International Patent  Classification system (IPC). The classification of the patent applications is captured in the IPAS database. IPO patent examiners use WIPO IPCR online system to capture IPC translation updates. The translation is published on the upgraded IPCPub platform which is provided by WIPO and installed and maintained by the office IT department. Translated IPC versions as well as the last one IPC 2019.1 are available in the Serbian and English language at the following link:  http://www.zis.gov.rs/databases/patent-databases.419.html

Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents

All granted patent and petty patent are published with the abstract on the first page. The abstracts and titles are translated in English and entered into MIMOSA RS database in Serbian and English languages. Espacenet RS is updated on the regular basis, following the publication of each IPO-RS Official gazette. Patent description translation to other languages is possible within the Espacenet machine translation feature. Retrieved patent documents are available for the review and download in the PDF format

Other activities

III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Main types of publications of the Office (patent applications, full text, first pages, abstracts, bibliographic data, granted patents, etc.), medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)

Official IPO Gazette contains bibliographic data with the abstracts in Serbian and English on published patent applications, registered patents, registered petty patents and CPC. Full text of all published patent documents in Gazette, are available on Publication server and they can be searched by the application/publication number, IPC symbol, document kind and publication date on the following URL address and they are available in PDF format. The documents are scanned and cannot be searched by key words in full text. http://www.zis.gov.rs/databases/patent-databases.419.html

IT and Publishing department of IPO prints in-house whole patent documents after the grant of patent/petty patent as well as patent certificates, application forms as well as guide for drafting the patent application. Patent documentation in paper is still available but not for public use in separate room at the Office.

Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.

Intellectual Property Gazette is the basic official source of information about all intellectual property rights. IP Gazette is issued monthly since the end of 2016. Since the beginning of 2012 the Intellectual Property Gazette is published only in electronic form in PDF format on the website of the IPO at the following link. http://www.zis.gov.rs/информационе-услуге.48.html

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases

All the searches at the Office are computerized. Each working station has fast internet access and patent databases are accessible through it. National database in electronic form primarily was internal and in 2009 became publicly on-line available. MIMOSA professional search software for advanced search through published national patent documents can be installed by user and then the search can be conducted. Internally, WIPO IPAS administration system is used for administration of patent applications. 97 093 nationally published patent documents are available through MIMOSA search software. IPO's examiners are provided with access to the professional database EPOQUE-net through secure connection with EPO server. This database is used since 2009 for examination matters together with all free available databases of patent and non-patent literature. Access to the scientific non-patent literature is obtained through KoBSON system of National library of Serbia.

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to external users, conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)

The Public library or public reading room is part of the office’s Education and Information Center. At the library at 4 workstations, individuals can perform free individual or assisted search through national patent documentation through MIMOSA software (97 093 documents), Espacenet as well as through Trademark and Design national databases. National databases and registers also can be accessed on-line as well as through MIMOSA software with the instruction for use, Espacenet RS or Espacenet Worldwide free of charge.

Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)

Legal status of retrieved documents is available in the electronic Patent register for all documents since 1994. The register inscriptions are available since the year 2015, when the office established electronic patent register. Patent register is available at the following link: http://www.zis.gov.rs/databases/patent-databases.419.html 

The older register inscriptions, before year 2015, are still available in the paper form and can be viewed free of charge. Every person can obtain excerpts from the paper register by submitting relevant request and paying a service fee to the account of the Office.

IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements

For the administration of patent, petty patent and supplementary protection certificate, IPO uses the administrative process management system WIPO IPAS, which is integrated with the EDMS to provide full electronic file. Starting with the year 2017, all incoming IPR related documents are digitized, and stored in EDMS, together with official letters. Reception activity is conducted by the specific module, which is integrated with e-Filing and IPAS systems, so to streamline reception and data capture of the electronic and paper documents.

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WIPO PUBLISH platform is implemented in the testing environment. WIPO Publish provides contemporary user interface through customizable web pages, and enables advanced search, powered by the underlying search engine SOLR. The updated program versions are regularly tested and deployed.

Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office

IPO is connected to the Internet provider by the direct optical connection, at the increased bandwidth of 50/50 Mbps. The connection is secured with the advanced firewall equipment. The server infrastructure is gradually virtualized using existing servers and data storage. The user workstations are partially renewed. Cartridge tape system is used for system wide data backup.

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

Patent files are available in the IPAS database starting with the filing year 1990. Patent data for the publication in the Gazette are extracted monthly from the IPAS database. Bibliographic data are transformed into ST36 format and loaded into MIMOSA RS database and also shared with the WIPO and EPO. Data in the electronic patent register are automatically refreshed each day.

Increasing part of patent description documents is received in electronic form, mostly from the patent representatives. The majority of regional patent validation requests and subsequent documents are submitted electronically. The regional patent bibliographic data are automatically loaded into internal databases from the EPO’s weekly EBD files. Also, in 2018 for the purpose of data exchange with the EPO database Espacenet, the Espacenet New project is in effect at the office and in Espacenet complete patent documents with RS country code since 2006 can be found in it. In 2018 the regular monthly provision of the full-text for the published documents is provided, within the ongoing EPO project quality-at-source. Paper documents are scanned in the WIPO Scan and EPO Scan systems. Patent files are kept in the EDMS system. Preparation for the publication of the patent documents is conducted in the customized WIPO Patent OCR platform. The publication of the Gazette is accompanied with the publication of the respective published patent documents on the Publication server.

Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file

Databases used for searching by patent examiners internally accessible are: national patent documentation through MIMOSA RS, EPOQUENET database of EPO - search of database of patent documents that are on the servers of the European Patent Office. Other national databases are used regularly.

Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)

IPAS is administrative system for management of patents and all other industrial property rights (trademarks, designs). The new electronic E-filing system was launched in 2017 and available on http://www.zis.gov.rs/registri/e-podnosenje.1163.html. It requires locally approved digital certificates for electronic signature to submit the applications and subsequent documents. This enables users to electronically submit different kinds of requests.

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IPO developed data exchange tools for providing to WIPO the legal status updates of the PCT patents in the national phase in Serbia.
IPO prepares the authority file for the published patent documents.

V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION

Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries

The IPO continually checks and amends bibliographical data and in such a way improves the national patent data base of documents MIMOSA RS. Also, in the course of 2018, 4375 newly published patent documents were placed in the database MIMOSA RS which are available for online searching. National patent collection in electronics formats now consists of: 43 169 published patent applications (A, A1,A2, A3), 52 319 (B, B1) granted patents and 1 612 petty patents (U, U1) since 1921. Newly published patent documents were regularly uploaded in ESPACENET database.

http://www.zis.gov.rs/left/databases.421.html 

Publications related to different business procedures and patent information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.

Education and Information Center (EIC) of the IPO publishes EIC Newsletter with information about important subjects in the field of intellectual property. The EIC Newsletter is intended for all organizations and individuals involved in intellectual property or seeking knowledge in this field. The EIC Newsletter offers informative and educative thematic articles and other important information in the field of intellectual property. The Newsletter is available via official website of the EIC: http://www.zis.gov.rs/sources-of-information/newsletter.302.html

Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.

The Education and information Centre (EIC) of the IPO provides support in the form of a service of disseminating information and education realized through consultations and conducting training, seminars and workshops aiming identification, protection, management and exploitation of the results of research taking into account that intellectual property is created in research institutions. In a broader context this helps to promote innovation - transformation of ideas into products, processes and technologies benefiting society as a whole.

Stimulating universities and other public research institutions to be more active in protecting and exploiting, the EIC held many seminars for professors, researches and students.

Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.

IPO Serbia has a public library where all persons can get the personal consultancy for trademark filings and procedures. Through Education and Information center and the seminars, information on trademark system and the proceedings are delivered to the public. Each month on third Thursday, Open Door event is organized in IPO for customer’s consultations beside the opportunity for consultations every day on regular basis.

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http://www.zis.gov.rs/registri/e-podnosenje.1113.html 

Other activities

The number of offered services regarding the search of patent documentation was higher for 8% in comparison to 2017 and has been the highest in the last four years, including 70% of requests referring to the field of chemistry, in particular to active substances of medicaments.

VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION

International exchange and sharing of patent information in machine-readable form, e.g., priority documents, bibliographic data, abstracts, search reports, full text information

Full text of published patent documents with search reports is shared with EPO and WIPO in the scope of the EPO’s project Quality at Source. Serbian IPO established monthly delivery of the produced full text for the published patent documents, together with the bibliographic data in the ST36 format

Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information

In the year 2018, IPO continued data exchange with WIPO of the PCT National Phase legal status updates. IPO started uses ePCT platform for administering national phase of the PCT patent procedure.

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IPO staff participated at PATLIB and EPO Patent information conferences in 2019.

Assistance to developing countries

IT Department of the office developed and maintained the following programs for patent data dissemination and exchange, which are available for other IP offices in the region:

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- EP Post grant modules implementation and support in San Marino, Tunisia, Albania and North Macedonia