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Annual Technical Report 2011 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Serbia (CWS/ATR/PI/2011/RS)

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.

The term "patent" covers utility models and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs). Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in their Annual Technical Reports on Industrial Design Information Activities.

I. Evolution of patent activities

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Patent applications in 2011

Patent application filed by domestic applicants: 180, -37.93 % compared to 2010 (290)
Foreign applications filed directly in the IPO: 28, +21.74 % compared to 2010 (23)
PCT applications in national phase: 21, + 31.25 % compared to 2010 (16)
Requests for validation of EP patents in Republic of Serbia: 361, +44.4% compared to 2010 (250)
Extended EP applications (paid designation fee): 3464, -2.67 % compared to 2010 (3559)

TOTAL: 4054, -2.03 % compared to 2010 (4138)


Petty patent applications in 2011

Domestic applicants: 67, -31% compared to 2010 (97)
Foreign applicants: 4, no change compared to 2010 (4)

TOTAL: 71, -29.70 % compared to 2010 (101)


Number of patents granted in 2011

Domestic patentee: 60, -63 % compared to 2010 (98)
Foreign patentee: 432, -49.41 % compared to 2010 (854)
(Out of number of foreign patentee, validated EP B in RS: 313, -40.38 compared to 2010 (525))

TOTAL: 492, -48.32% compared to 2010 (952)


Number of petty patents granted in 2011

Domestic patentee: 48, -35.14% compared to 2010 (74)
Foreign patentee: 2, -50% compared to 2010: (4)

TOTAL: 50, -35.9% compared to 2010 (78)

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

In the course of 2011, there is notable decrease in number of applications filed by domestic applicants, 180 compared with 290 in 2010.

The trend in the last few years is that foreign applicants use EP route after PCT route to enter the national phase what is shown by the increase of number of requests filled in the Office for validation of European patent. 361 requests are received in 2011 compared to 250 in 2010, 218 in 2009 and 148 in 2008.

313 of European patents were entered into Register of patents in 2011. In 2010, 525 European patents were entered into Register of patents and that higher number in previous year is the result of solved backlog from 2006 onwards when IPO of the Republic of Serbia started receiving the requests for validation of European patents.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to patents

At the following link to the IPO website, all Annual reports of the IPO activities from 2006 onward are available in PDF. Statistical data are available for each IP rights in relevant part of the document. It is bilingual in Serbian and English.

http://www.zis.gov.rs/о-заводу/годишњи-извештаји.50.html

Also, the statistics parts are available as the tables for each IP rights at separate web page of IPO website at following link is Patent statistics in English

http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/statistics.65.html

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information

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Intellectual Property Gazette is the basic official source of information about all intellectual property rights. 6 issues of IP Gazette were issued in 2011 – one issue in two months. It was available in paper, CD carrier and in PDF at the IPO website
http://www.zis.gov.rs/information-services/intellectual-property-gazette.462.html
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. Also, in the course of 2011, as the addition to the previously printed WIPO Business series edition, IPO Office arranged and printed “Exchanging Value, Negotiating Technology Licensing Agreements: A Training Manual” and 10 brochures for information and advertisement purpose about administrative procedures of protection of certain IP rights, about services offered by the Office and possibilities of utilization of the data bases. These leaflets were used primarily for the representation of the Office at the fairs, exhibitions and seminars all over the Serbia. In 2011, the Education and Information Center at IPO Serbia is established formally with the function of education of all stakeholder group and consultancy service. The four EIC Newsletters are issued within 2011 and delivered to the customers.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information

Official IPO Gazette contains bibliographic data with the abstracts in Serbian and English on published patent applications, registered patents and registered petty patents. In each issue of Gazette bibliographic data on provisional protection of European patent applications are published on the basis of list of designations for extension of EP application (for applications filled with EPO 2004-2010, when the Extension agreement was in force) received from the EPO.
Full text of all published patent documents in Gazette published since 1976, are available on Publication server and they can be searched by the publication number, IPC symbol of the Office after its issuing on the following URL address in PDF form.
http://89.216.38.53/rs-pubserver/search.jsp?lg=en

Mass storage media used (paper, microforms, optical storage, etc.)

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In 2011 the version 2010.01 of IPC was used to classify the new applications and symbols assigned are indexed. Earlier published patent applications classified according with the earlier IPC editions are reclassified after grant.

There is a link to the IPC at our web site, and some of the older editions of IPC (2008.04, 2009.01) had been translated into the Serbian language https://89.216.38.52/SerbIPC/index.php

Bibliographic data and full-text processing

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The Office is still receiving foreign patent documents on CD and DVD, but number of countries is decreasing due to the switch to the free database through internet. IPO Serbia still receives them from NIPO of AT, RU and SI.
Official bulletins and Annual reports of foreign offices are received from time to time in paper or on electronically carriers.

V. Activities in the field of computerized and other mechanized search systems

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All the searches at the Office are computerized. Each working station has fast internet access and all external, mostly free, patent databases are accessible through it. Primarily it was internally and in 2009 became publicly on-line available, MIMOSA RS professional search software for advanced search through published national patent documents. Search allows use of all bibliographic search criteria and their combination including keywords in title and abstract in Serbian and English. Office also has complete collection of ESPACE EP and PCT patent documentation and it is accessible online/offline with MIMOSA RS, too.

Published patent applications, granted patent and registered petty patent are searchable by: filling date, publication date, priority date, application number, patent number, petty patent number, inventor name, applicant name, patentee and IPC classification symbol in MIMOSA RS database.

Also in the course of 2011 1045 new patent documents were placed in the basis MIMOSA RS which is available for online searching through national patent documentation which consists of: 38 478 published patent applications, 17 514 granted patents and 1 262 petty patents since 1976. (http://www.zis.gov.rs/left/databases.421.html )

Internally IPAS administration system is used for administration of patent applications.

External databases

IPO's examiners are provided with the access to the professional patent documentation database EPOQUEnet. Patent examiners started to conduct patent searches using this database in 2009, and it is also used for conducting searches within the commercial services offered by the Office.
For the purpose of examination, all available free-databases are used as the source of patent and non-patent information and the office has the access upon the agreement with National Library to the database COBSON of scientific non-patent literature.

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

In Patent Sector IPAS (Intellectual Property Administration System, developed by WIPO) was used for patent application administration. All the data and changes from the receiving applications to the grant were administered through IPAS. Since IPAS was introduced in Trademark Sector two years earlier, new server is acquired for new function of administering patent/petty patent applications. Also it is possible to perform simple search in IPAS and to get excerpts in determined beforehand templates. Patent search in IPAS is available in-house.

Very important job in this field started in 2008 and continued in 2009 and that is preparing patent data for Gazette through IPAS, withdrawing of the bibliographic data contained in the Gazette in XML St36 format and using it for MIMOSA RS database and also providing the EPO with RS data in order to become accessible through esp@cenet.

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used

Internet access is achieved through direct optical connection to the provider at 20Mbit/sec, 2xCisco ASA 5510 in active/standby firewall configuration.

IPAS server for patents - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX200 server, 4GB RAM memory, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, aplication software is IPAS (proprietary), database is Oracle.

Server for patents:
Internet access - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX300 server, 4 GB RAM, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, web browser as a client, application server Apache/Tomcat, MySql database.

Intranet access - FujitsuSiemens Esprimo P workstation as a server (2 GB of RAM, 2x146GB hard disks).MS Windows XP, Active Directory database member, Mimosa software as a client, application server Apache/Tomcat, MySql database.

System EPOQUEnet provided by EPO with communication server
Server for Espacenet software (local database):
2xIMB System x3650 M3, 18GB RAM, Dual XEON prosessor Quad core, 6 SAS 300GB disks, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 1 (64bit) OS, Apache, MySql
IT equipment for EpoqueNet (connection to databases at EPO):
CISCO 2851 VPN router, CISCO Switch Catalyst 2950 12 ports, IBM Xserver 2 GB RAM, 2X 73,4 SAS disks, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP 1

VI. Administration of the industrial property office library, and information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, for assisting clients on searching procedures, for obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

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The Patent Library of the Department for Patent Documentation and Information Dissemination is part of the Information Services Sector.
There are no special requirements for the library use and there is free access to the library's reading room. Patent library is equipped with 5 workstations with internet access and with the access to national patent documentation database. Access to the paper patent documentation discontinued in the 2009 for the customers and their availability from the mid 2009 is solely through electronically databases.
Stuff in library and from the other departments often assists our clients in searching procedures especially to those who are not familiar in handling with electronically databases. Library is equipped with copy machine and printers where the clients can get the copies of relevant documents they are interested in.

Office also provides information services in the field of patents on written requests which are liable to payment of corresponding fees.
Different kinds of services are listed below:

- Informing economic agents and other users about the existence and use of patent information;
- Professional assistance of experts from the Office in determining the type of patent information;
- Professional assistance for users of patent information in understanding the bibliographic data and interpretation of patent information of a legal nature contained in patent documents;
- Professional assistance in drafting requests for a search of the patent documentation;
- Patent documentation search based on written requests with enclosures of the copies of relevant patent documents specified in the search report; (commercial service)
- Systematic searches into a particular field of technology in a particular interval of time according to the defined needs; (commercial service)
- The possibility of autonomous patent documentation search;
- Provision of information to the public regarding the legal status of patents and petty patents, as well as of patent applications; (commercial service)
- Delivery of copies of patent specifications upon request; (commercial service)
- Publication of the Intellectual Property Gazette (Glasnik intelektualne svojine - GIS), the official newsletter of the Intellectual Property Office, with information on the published industrial property rights;
- Organization of seminars and courses with relevant programs for the users of patent information.

Collecting, acquisitions, preparation

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The patent collections and the Internet access are available in the public reading room. The Office`s employees carries out personal assistance and consultations. The Office also provides searches on commercial basis upon written request.

The national patent collection is also available to the public on-line in reading room (Library) as well as on the Internet through Publication Server, MIMOSA RS (from 1975) and Espacenet (from 2006),

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and grant procedures related to patents; opposition and appeal procedures related to patents; etc.

Under the "Intellectual property rights" the Patent information are available in both (Serbian and English) languages and there are the links for all proceedings before the Office as well as FAQ, Legislative texts, statistics, international patent protection, relevant agreements etc. There is no opposition and appeal procedures which are conducted in the Office, but the interested party can start the actions against IPO decisions before the relevant court.
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/most-frequently-asked.60.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/права-ис/патенти/најчешћа-питања.2.html

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., patent search service(s) and patent databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

http://www.zis.gov.rs/information-services/scope.107.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/databases/patent-databases.419.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/forms-and-instructions.62.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/fees.63.html

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

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Serbian patent documents are available in the MIMOSA RS database, while the exchange of data in electronic format is conducted with the EPO for the data since 2006. Also, Official Gazette in electronic form is published on IPO website. Office discontinued printing it in paper and on CD. Following link is to the archive of Official Gazette.
http://www.zis.gov.rs/information-services/intellectual-property-gazette.462.html

Medium allowed for filing applications

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IPO of Serbia had established the Education and Information Center (EIC) in 2009. EIC has developed in previous two years a range of different type of seminars for different stakeholder groups. Lectures can be tailor made. Also, the IPO is equipped with the modern public library, and the premises for seminars and educational purpose.
http://www.zis.gov.rs/home.334.html

Assistance to developing countries (sending consultants and experts, receiving trainees from developing countries, etc.)

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In course of 2011 EIC held 72 seminars with different level of expertise for: SMEs, SMEs support institutions, institutes, universities, enforcement institutions and general public with 2477 participants. Also, Office introduced the service of Intellectual Property Pre-diagnosis in 2010, and in 2011 delivered this service to 21 SMEs. Beside regular consultancy on daily basis, EIC had 12 Open door events, once a month for consultancy in groups.
Office participated in 8 Round tables and had a booth at the following fairs:

- TESLA FEST in Novi Sad -the biggest inventor's exhibition in Serbia, October 2011
- INOCOOP Fair of entrepreneurship in Zrenjanin - August 2011
- Belgrade's inventor exhibition - May 2011
- Busines database fair in Belgrade, December 2011

At five regional or trade fairs IPO participated with the lectures upon invitations from organizers.

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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http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/patents/legislative-texts.61.html in English,
http://www.zis.gov.rs/права-ис/патенти/прописи.3.html in Serbian,

contain the Annual Report of the Office

http://www.zis.gov.rs/about-us/annual-report.106.html in English
http://www.zis.gov.rs/о-заводу/годишњи-извештаји.50.html in Serbian

contain patent-related news regarding the Office

http://www.zis.gov.rs/news/news.104.html
http://www.zis.gov.rs/вести/вести.46.html

X. Other relevant matters

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