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120 applications for designs were filed with the Office in 2012; it is 11.1 per cent more than in 2011 . The most active foreign applicants were from the Czech Republic (12), France (4) and Sweden (4).
Slovak applicants filed 97 applications (increase by 1.0 per cent). The share of domestic applications was 80.8 per cent of the total number of filed applications.
117 designs were registered in 2012; that is 60.3 per cent more than in 2011.
On December 31, 2012 there were 997 valid national designs.
For comparison there is the statistics on design applications and registrations of the years 2005 - 2012.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to industrial designs
URL to Annual Technical Reports on Designs:
http://www.upv.sk/?vyrocne-technicke-spravy
URL to Annual reports of the IPO SR:
http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of industrial design documents and of secondary sources of industrial design information, i.e., official gazettes
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Publication of designs
The Office publishes registered designs in the Official Gazette.
Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR"
Design information forms part of the Official Gazette - "Vestník ÚPV SR", covering all industrial property rights in one publication. IPO SR publishes official version of the Official Gazette in electronic form on CD ROM in PDF format. In 2012 the Gazette had a circulation of 130 copies, of which 33 were distributed monthly by subscription. Other copies were sent free of charge to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO SR, to information and consulting sites INNOINFO, within the frame of industrial property information exchange to foreign offices and as statutory copies according to the act as well. In 2011 the Office ceased the publication of online version of the Gazette in the Internet. It was replaced by its electronic version in PDF format, which is available via Internet address http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky.Within international exchange the Official Gazette was distributed into 30 countries including EPO and WIPO.
The following numbers of designs were published in the Official Gazette 2012:
104 registered designs
75 registered designs with the extended term of validity
MS Office 2007, FineReader 11, Adobe Acrobat 10 Professional SK, Corel Draw 11, Adobe InDesign Standard CS5.5, Photoshop CS5.1, EPSON Scan 3.74 SK are being used for text processing, photocomposing and printing.
SLEX99 – Lexicon of Slovak Language contains following parts: Short Dictionary of Slovak Language, Slovak Dictionary of Synonyms, Rules of Slovak Grammar, used for the data processing. The photocomposing and printing is carried out by the Office.
The Desk-Top Publishing technology is being used for data and image inputs processing, for the Gazette and first pages of the design documents.
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of industrial design information
The Gazette contains design announcements arranged in following main chapters:
-list of registered designs (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered designs (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-list of registered designs with extended term of validity (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered designs with extended term of validity (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-list of registered designs with postponed publishing (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered designs with postponed publishing (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-list of published registered designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of published registered designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-assignments and transfers of rights and other changes of owners
-cancellation of design registrations
-partial cancellation of design registrations
-registered designs lapsed by abandonment
-registered designs partially lapsed by abandonment
-registered designs lapsed by expiry of the validity
-extension of the validity of registered designs
-forfeitures of protection and transfers of an owner (on the basis of the court decision)
-changes of the rights of disposal to registered designs (lien)
-changes of the rights of disposal to registered designs (termination of lien)
-registration of licensing contracts
-termination of licensing contracts
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online industrial design gazettes and to other sources of industrial design information, including download of bulk industrial design data
ON-LINE DATABASES
http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its homepage.
National databases are:
-"Data extracted from Registers" also called as "Webregisters", gives public access to information from national registers of industrial property rights and are updated daily http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=en
-“Classification Systems” http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia contains classifications used in Slovakia and abroad:
“Design Classifications” contains Slovak version of 9 th edition of Locarno Classification (fully searchable), links to other classifications systems for classifying designs used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia-dizajny
-Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR" may be viewed on the address http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette - each issue is available as a one PDF file containing the whole issue. At the same time it is divided into PDF files containing only selected parts of the gazette, e.g.: patents, designs, trademarks or official announcements. In the archive on this webpage are available the previous volumes also in PDF format. The older volumes are gradually being added.
In the part ”International and EU databases” there are links to the most frequently used on-line databases http://www.upv.sk/?zahranicne-online-databazy#dizajny.
ON-LINE ORDERS
http://www.upv.sk/?online-orders
The IPO SR provides electronic order forms for Official Gazette, magazine Intellectual Property and E-zine, expert publications of the IPO SR and IPO CZ, Annual Reports, patent documents and searches (see the part „Products and Services“, chapter VI).
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied
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The current version of the International Classification for Industrial Design (Locarno Classification) is used for classifying of designs, which are classified by Office´s experts.
Bibliographic data and processing
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The online design database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national design searches and purposes of proceedings on design applications. Selected register data are available to the public in the Internet.
It is possible to carry out searches according to bibliographic data in all the databases used for designs.
Designview
In 2012 the IPO SR was involved in the Project Designview. This searching tool contains data of registers of involved national offices, WIPO and OHIM. Designview provides centralised access to information on registered designs, which is at disposal of the offices involved in the Project.
External databases
Internet databases in particular:
Registered industrial designs database of the IPO CZ
WIPO International Design Bulletin
OHIM Industrial Designs Database
Hague Express Database
National databases USPTO and IPOUK
Search system Designview
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
The Office automation management system contains designs register (data since 1991) using “INVENTIO” software.
Administrative databases based on Lotus Domino and Fabasoft eGov Suite.
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), data carriers used
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In 2012, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 1 305 users and 1 290 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6 247 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 22 090 copies of patent documents and other industrial property documents for the manual and computer search purposes, as well as copies from technical periodicals and other associated and non-patent literature were made. In 2012 there were performed 11 design searches and 36 searches on bibliographic data.
The Office’s reading room serves as a WIPO deposit library as well. The deposit library fund includes 173 volumes of publications issued by WIPO, which are available for study in reading room.
The Office’s reading room including the search workstation opens daily from 8:00 to 15:00.
All online services and other basic information are available via Internet address of IPO SR www.upv.sk.
Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and industrial design information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)
The Office library provides following services to the public:
-general information - provided by Office’s experts
-lending service (Official Gazettes, special monographs and reference literature) in the reading room
-sale of special monographs and periodical publications (“Intellectual Property” in paper, Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR” on CD-ROM) upon request or on the place
-reprographic services upon request or on the place
-on-line searches in Office’s search system, self-service during a personal visit
-searches upon request - orders in written and online form
-registry information provided in the reading room
-CD-ROM workstations available in the reading room
Industrial design information on the World Wide Web:
-general information
-information about Office activities (seminars, training courses, etc.)
-application guide and forms
-administrative fees
-relevant laws
-Annual Reports
-extracted data from register
-Official Gazette
-order forms (searches, Official Gazette, special literature)
-Locarno Classification (9-th edition)
-design classifications and related information
-annual technical reports on design information (2002-2012)
Patent Information Centres and Contact and Information Points
Since 2003 the Office has established 10 contact and information points, while four of them are the Patent Information Centres. They are located in state, regional and district libraries as well as in the Slovak National Library in Martin and Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava. A list of centres and points is available on the Office’s web site http://www.upv.sk/?partners. (For more information see the annual technical report on patent information.)
The co-operation with patent information centres and contact and information points within the PATLIB network, which is being realised on the basis of mutual cooperation agreements, continued also in 2012.
It is the second year that PATLIB centre of Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava (CVTI) has participated in the pilot project of the European Patent Office (EPO) aimed at re-orientation of PATLIB centres. The goal of the project is the introduction of new innovative and supporting services and cooperation with regional or national network to support innovations. Project will run to the end of 2013, with an option of extension for two more years.
The realization of the pilot project is based on a working plan, which was elaborated in cooperation of CVTI and the office. PATLIB centre submits to the EPO the evaluation report relating to results achieved within the project twice a year. Since 2013 the project is included in the plan of bilateral cooperation with the EPO – do 2013.
Information and Advisory Points for Innovations (InnoInfo)
The mission of InnoInfo centres http://www.upv.sk/?information-and-advisory-points-for-innovation-innoinfo operating in the regions of Slovakia is to orientate especially the small and medium sized entrepreneurs in the field of innovations and industrial property. InnoInfo centres are established in business incubators, regional consultancy and information centres, regional chambers of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at the Universities of technical orientation.
Co-operation of the IPO SR with Trenčín Regional Chamber of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the BIC Bratislava, Ltd. has been having a high level for years, but we can not say this about other satellites of the Office. Therefore in 2012 those responsible employees of the Office visited all information and advisory centres involved in the InnoInfo Project to develop meaningful and mutually beneficial co-operation. The InnoInfo representatives were at first interested in information leaflets and the actual publications on IP protection to be sent regularly as well as in organising expert seminars related to these issues together with the Office.
The IPO SR representatives met the entrepreneurs from tourism in Kysuce in December 2012 to provide basic information on brand building. The representative of the Regional Development Agency Kysuce in Čadca organised the meeting. The Agreement on Mutual Co-operation with the Directress of the Banská Bystrica Regional Chamber of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (BBRC SCCI) Marína Spirová was signed on September 27, 2012. The Agreement was the base for creation of the 15th InnoInfo. The partners included into the network made InnoInfo available on their web sites to provide basic information on IP protection of signs, technical solutions and designs.
Information Centre
Within their professional consultancy activities, the Centre staff provides the public with the necessary IPR-related information personally, by telephone (+421 48 4300 131), mail or e-mail infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk or by fax. The Information Centre includes also “Helpdesk” providing information about electronic on-line filing.
Information Centre provided totally 7,146 pieces of information in 2012; 5,555 by phone; 1,134 by e-mail; 250 personally; 205 by post and 2 pieces of information were sent by fax.
The Information Centre was moved to premises freely accessible to public in order to improve comfort of the Office´s clients and the services provided were optimised by joining the Information Centre to department providing search and consultation services related to
industrial and legal information.
Workplace of the IPO SR in Bratislava
Workplace of the Office, which was opened in 2004 offered information relating to filing applications for industrial property rights subjects last year. In the workplace, there is a filing room.
Pre-diagnostics of industrial property rights
http://www.upv.sk/?prediagnostika-priemyselnych-prav
To increase the awareness of industrial property, to support innovations, creativity and competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises are the primary goals of industrial rights pre-diagnostics performed by the IPO SR experts since 2008. During 2012 the Office employees visited 30 companies from the whole Slovakia. The most of them were in Banská Bystrica (6), Bratislava (4), and Žilina (9) Self-Governing Regions. Although filing applications is not the primary goal of the pre-diagnostics, totally 153 applications in 5 years were received since introduction of this service.
URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of industrial design applications
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Webregisters
http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its homepage. Most frequently used databases are "Data extracted from Registers" also called as "Webregisters". Webregisters give public access to data extracted from design register, which is kept by the Office with the possibility of simple and advanced search or browsing results. Data concerning in particular pending design applications, all filed applications or registered designs in the register are daily updated.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., industrial design search service(s) and industrial design databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them
Products and services
URL addresses providing basic information concerning the information services offered and information products issued by the Office and other relevant information relating to their accession and utilization
-Official Gazette http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette
-magazine “Intellectual Property” http://www.upv.sk/?dusevne-vlastnictvo
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
-IPO SR and IPO CZ publications http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
-E-zine IPO SR http://www.upv.sk/?e-zine-upv-sr
-on-line order forms http://www.upv.sk/?online-orders
-price list http://www.upv.sk/swift_data/source/pdf/Cennik.pdf
-data extracted from register http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
-IPO SR reading room http://www.upv.sk/?other-services
-searches http://www.upv.sk/?searches
-search system Designview https://www.tmdn.org/tmdsview-web/welcome.html?lang=sk
Information services offered by the Office, see the part “Information services available to the public“, chapter VI.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information
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World Intellectual Property Day
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?ipo-sr-activities-for-smes
The employees of the Industrial Property Office of SR, invited guests and also interested people from public celebrated the World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD) on April 26. The WIPD is the Open Day, too. Ásta Valdimarsdóttir, the Head of Operation Service, International Registries of Madrid and Lisbon, Brand and Designs Section, WIPO, and Peter Gogola, the Mayor of Banská Bystrica, participated in the Opening Ceremony. This year´s WIPD with the motto - Visionary Innovators - was also supported by the exhibition of art works with the topic Future through the Eyes of Young "Innovators" of pupils of the Primary Arts School of Ján Cikker in Banská Bystrica, celebrating 70th Anniversary of its Establishment in March this year.
The working part of the WIPD 2012 at the IPO SR consisted of the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia XII related to the topic Counterfeiting and Piracy - False Hopes, Real Threats. Real possibilities to eliminate this negative phenomenon were discussed.
Web Site of the Office
www.upv.sk
The Office also in 2012 continued with updating the web site daily to provide visitors new information on IP, to inform about upcoming conferences and other events and to update information of all relevant sites within the whole web site. The English version of the site was complemented and updated regularly to inform the foreign visitors.
There were 183,040 visitors of the web site recorded in 2012; the average number of users was 501 during weeks and 170 during weekends. Trade Marks, News, Web Registers (registers and databases) and Patents were the most visited sites. 80 % of visits were from Slovakia, 4 % from Czech Republic and 16 % from abroad. Every seventh visitor visits the site regularly and approximately 40 % of the visitors access the web site via the tab "favourite" or via direct entry of the address without using a browser.
WWW.PATENTOVAT.SK
The Industrial Property Office made the new internet portal www.patentovat.sk available to increase the awareness of IP and its protection in the beginning of April 2011.
It consists of the updated informative multi-medial DVD Intellectual Property - the Unique Deserves Protection! - issued by the Office in 2007. The internet portal reflects new trends in promotion of IP protection and information technologies and is linked to the social network facebook and to the official web seat of the Office www.upv.sk. The portal www.patentovat.sk focuses on the public to popularise IP and to provide information on possibilities of IP protection and related services and products of the Office.
International Seminars
The 4th year of the international conference IP Protection at Universities took place at the University of Žilina on November 13. The IPO SR in co-operation with the mentioned University, the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information organised the event with the support of the WIPO.
ENClub - the Economy Newspaper Club and the IPO SR organised a discussion forum with the topic What are the Support Activities for Industrial Property, Innovations and Economic Growth? in the Bratislava Hotel Crowne Plazza on June 25. The WIPO was the special guarantee.
Co-operation with Universities
Intellectual Property Protection at Universities IV
http://www.upv.sk/?events&clanok=intellectual-property-protection-at-universities-iv
The 4th year of the International Conference Intellectual Property Protection at Universities took place at the University of Žilina on November 13, 2012. The Conference was organised by the IPO SR in co-operation with the University of Žilina, the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information and with the support of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).
Researchers' Night 2012
On Friday, September 28, 2012, the 8th year of the European festival of science - Researchers´ Night - took place. It is the European Commission Project to show the public by means of interesting activities that scientists, researchers - although they have an interesting profession - are only "common" people and to show the results of their work. Researchers are Among Us was the motto of the Project.
The Researchers´ Night was organised in Slovakia for the 6th time thanks to the Slovak Organisation for Researching and Developing Activities (SORDA), Slovak Academy of Sciences and to the portal EurActiv.sk. The Office participated in the event for the 2nd time - with expositions in the Avion Shopping Park, Bratislava, Europa Shopping Centre, Banská Bystrica and in the shopping centre Optima, Košice. The IPO SR representatives discussed with visitors issues of creativity and inventions, IP protections; they provided visitors information materials issued by the Office and various games and quizzes for younger visitors. The Science is Life was the motto for the greatest scientific show in Slovakia.
Exhibitions
Presentation of the IPO SR at fairs and exhibitions in Slovakia and also abroad is an important means for providing information and consultations on IP protection. In 2012 the Office participated in four international exhibitions:
-CONECO - international construction industry fair, Bratislava, (March - April);
-Furniture and Living, Nitra (March);
-International Engineering Fair, Nitra (May);
-AGROKOMPLEX, Nitra (August)
At these exhibitions the Office services were promoted and contacts for pre-diagnostics were being obtained. During these exhibitions innovative Slovak companies were contacted; several of them were interested in pre-diagnostics.
The Office also participated in 64th International Trade Fair Ideas - Inventions - New Products iENA 2012 in German Nuremberg in the common stand of patent offices Internationales Patentinformationszentrum.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY MAGAZINE
This periodical publishes in particular original contributions of the Office experts as well as experts working in the field of industrial and legal protection, discussions and debates on published topics, case law, reviews, Office news , international news and other relevant IP information.
Intellectual Property Magazine last year was issued under the guidance of the editorial board modified significantly. In the end of the previous year, the leaving members were replaced by JUDr. Renáta Bačárová, PhD., LL.M., prof. Ing. Štefan Medvecký, PhD. and JUDr. Ing. Vladimír Neuschl. It seems to be reviving although it is too early to evaluate their work in the editorial board. Š. Medvecký wrote the Editorial and V. Neuschl prepared an article about the annual conference of the Slovak Chamber of Patent Attorneys in the second issue of the Intellectual Property. The Editorial of the third issue was written by R. Bačárová.
To increase the number of subscribers of the Magazine remains the actual task. In this relation the hopes are being put in the President of the IPO SR Mgr. Ľuboš Knoth, who became the member of the editorial board again after years.
IPO SR E – ZINE
IPO SR E-Zine is an e-mail magazine providing current information on intellectual property in Slovakia and worldwide. It is being issued monthly, but last year this tradition was “broken” in a good way. On June 11, the IPO SR issued EXTRA E-zine. It consisted of an interview with the IPO SR President Ľ. Knoth.
There were almost 170 external subscribers last year; 15 of them are editors of printed and electronic media.
Editorial Activities
The Office publishes classifications, miscellanies, expert monographs, acts and related commentaries, promotional and information brochures, leaflets or translations of the WIPO and the EPO original publications providing valuable information on industrial property field to public. The major popularisation activities of the Office last year included:
-Annual Report of the Industrial Property Office of SR, for the second time in electronic and web versions;
-The Miscellany from the Conference Intellectual Property Protection at Universities IV (CD);
-Commentary to the Act on Trade Marks;
-International Trade Marks under the Madrid System;
-International Classification of Goods and Services to Register Trade Marks (Nice Classification);
-The Magazine Intellectual Property, in colour, web version with quarterly delay;
-Information brochure Industrial and Legal Protection Subject-matters
Training courses for national and foreign participants
Intellectual Property Course
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?education
IPO SR continued the education programme Intellectual Property accredited by the Ministry of Education of the SR also last year. From September 2011 to May 2012 the Module D – IP Rights was running. 23 participants terminated the study in the said module.
22 participants entered the education programme from September 2012; 18 participants are external and 4 internal. This proves that the interest of public in education in intellectual property protection area has been increasing permanently.
In October 2012, 6 participants terminated their educating by their final theses plea. Some of final theses were recommended to be published in the Intellectual Property Magazine.New lectures approved by the Accreditation Commission helped to increase the education level.
IX.Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:
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- legislation in force http://www.upv.sk/?legislation-in-force
- related legislation http://www.upv.sk/?related-legislation
- invalid legislation http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?neplatne-pravne-predpisy
- multilateral treaties http://www.upv.sk/?multilateral-treaties
- EU legislation http://www.upv.sk/?eu-legislation
contain the Annual Report of the Office
http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports
if necessary, provide further information related to the topics referred to in the current ATR
Information relating to subjects of industrial property rights
Office's Web page contains basic information which are useful for the applicant by filing the application of particular type of industrial property right, such as application forms, legislation, instructions of the IPO SR, information for applicant, administrative fees, contact to expert assistance, etc.:
Patents http://www.upv.sk/?Patents
SPC http://www.upv.sk/?supplementary-protection-certificates
Utility models http://www.upv.sk/?utility-models
Designs http://www.upv.sk/?designs
Topographies http://www.upv.sk/?topographies-of-semiconductor-products
Trademarks http://www.upv.sk/?trademarks
Geographical indications http://www.upv.sk/?designation-of-origin-and-geographical-indications
contain industrial design-related news regarding the Office
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X. Other relevant matters