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On January 1, 2011 the Rule 18ter(1) of the Common Regulations under the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks and the Protocol Relating to that Agreement stating that national Offices shall be obliged to send to the International Bureau a statement to the effect that protection is granted to the mark entered into the force.
During 2011 the Office received 3,107 trademark applications, what represents increase by 4.4 per cent when compared with the previous year.
When compared with 2010, the number of domestic trademark applications increased by 4.2 per cent to 2,333.
In 2011, 2,032 international trademark applications were filed under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement. It represents decrease by 5.7 per cent when compared with 2010.
Total number of registered national trademarks increased by 0.4 per cent to 2,309.
The number of domestic registered trademarks increased by 3.0 per cent (1,712), the number of trademarks registered for foreign applicants decreased by 6.3 per cent to 597.
On December 31, 2011 there were 49.395 valid trademarks registered in the Office register.
For comparison, there is the statistics on trademark applications and registrations of the years 2005 - 2011.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to trademarks
URL to Annual Technical Reports on Trademarks:
http://www.upv.sk/?vyrocne-technicke-spravy
http://www.wipo.int/cws/en/atrs/
URL to Annual Reports of the IPO SR:
http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
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Publication of trademarks
The Office publishes published trademark applications and registered/ renewed trademarks in the Official Gazette.
Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR“
Trademark 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 2011 the Gazette had a circulation of 130 copies, of which 44 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 trademarks were published in the Official Gazette in 2011:
2 442 published trademarks applications
2 137 registered trademarks
2 365 renewed trademarks
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information
The Gazette contains trademark announcements arranged in following main chapters:
-list of published trademark applications (numerical series)
-bibliographic data of published trademark applications including the list of goods and services (arranged according to application numbers)
-list of registered trademarks without change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
-bibliographic data of registered trademarks without change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (arranged according to the registration numbers)
-list of registered trademarks with change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
-bibliographic data of registered trademarks with change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (arranged according to the registration numbers)
-list of registered trademarks based on trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with the Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (numerical series of applications with number of registration)
-bibliographic data of registered trademarks based on trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with the Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (arranged according to registration number)
-list of renewed registrations of trademark (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
-bibliographic data of renewed registrations of trademark (arranged according to the registration numbers)
-international registrations of trademarks
-bibliographic data of registered trademarks replaced by an international registration according to the article 4 bis of the Madrid Agreement and article 4 bis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (arranged according to the international registration numbers)
-official decisions (termination, refusal, etc.)
-trademarks declared invalid
-trademarks revoked and declared invalid for certain goods and services
-assignments of rights and other changes of owners
-partial assignments
-right of lien
-registration of licensing contracts in respect of trademarks
-termination of licensing contracts
-registration of sublicensing contracts in respect of trademarks
-termination of sublicensing contracts
-change of data concerning trademark owners
-change in the list of goods and services
-change of wording or reproductions of trademark
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes
Word processing and office automation
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MS Office 2003, FineReader 10.0, Adobe Acrobat 10 Professional SK, Quark Xpress Passport 7.5, Corel Draw 11, Adobe InDesign Standard CS5, Photoshop CS5.5, 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 trademark documents.
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
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:
“Trademark Classifications” contains Slovak version of 9th edition of Nice and 6th edition of Vienna Classification, links to other classifications systems for classifying trademarks used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia-ochranne-znamky
-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 ”Foreign on-line databases” there are links to the most frequently used on-line databases http://www.upv.sk/?zahranicne-online-databazy#znamky.
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 trademark information
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Goods and services are classified in accordance with the actual version of the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification). In the IPO SR exist an obligatory classifying system of goods and services by applicant according the said Classification. The last version of the International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification) is used as the code system of figurative elements of trademarks, which are classified by Office's expert.
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
Classification symbols were checked by internal electronic classification system built in Office registry software.
Obligation for applicants to use pre-defined terms of the classification applied
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Since the computerized search system for trademark information has been launched the trademark manual search files building and updating has been ceased.
Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file
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The online trademark database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national trademarks searches and purposes of proceedings on trademark 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 the trademarks.
International trademarks searches were performed in the Internet and in the Office management system “INVENTIO” for administration of international trademarks with designation for SK.
In the beginning of 2006, the Office implemented a new search system Acsepto. It enables performing the professional trademark searches for designations of products and services in databases of national, international and European trademarks as well as in other selected trademark databases.
CTM searches
In accordance with the EU Council Regulation No.40/1994 on the Community Trademark, the Office continued performing the searches about subjects of the Community trademark (CTM) applications also during the previous year. Based on OHIM requests the Office made searches in databases of national and international trademarks with designation for the Slovak Republic, the results of which were regularly sent back to OHIM.
Similarly as in case of the services provided to the public the search system Acsepto has been used also for CTM searches. It enables making searches of word, picture and combined trademarks within all designations applied for or protected in the territory of the Slovak Republic.
The number of requests under the system effective for CTM applications filed on March 10, 2008 or after this date was stabilised at the level of average 32 trademarks per week. The Office made 1 639 searches for designations of products and services last year.
TMview
In 2011 the Office made accessible Slovak trademarks within the project TMview http://tmview.europa.eu/tmview/welcome.html on a regular basis. It is a searchable trademark database of participating EU member countries with references and connections to national databases in languages all countries involved.
List of search CD-ROMs and databases used on local network through the UltraNet 2000system:
IPO SR Official Gazette
ACSEPTO
ROMARIN
International Nonproprietary Names (INN) For Pharmaceutical Substances
List of Costumary Names Used in Brazil Associated with Biodiversity
legal and economic information, encyclopedia and statistics
translating dictionaries
External databases
Internet databases in particular:
Registered trademarks database of the IPO CZ
WIPO Gazette of International Marks
International Trademark Information Database ROMARIN
OHIM – Community Trademarks Database
National databases USPTO and IPOUK
Search system TMview
System for searching and classifying goods and services Euroclass
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
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Equipment used:
LAN is built on base of the Cisco technology, Fast ETHERNET 1000/100/10 Mbit/s, WINDOWS 2003 / 2008 Server; MS SQL Server 2005 / 2008; workstations PC Pentium, Windows XP / 7, thin client WYSE V10, WYSE S10, HP t5740.
Linux Red Hat Enterprise 4.0,
Informix Dynamic Server 10,
Citrix XenApp 5.0 FP3,
Ultranet – Ultra Console 2000
SAN HP MSA 1500 CS, SAN HP MSA P2000, G3
HP Storage Works MSL SDLT 5026 series library, MSL LTO 4048,
HP open view Storage Data Protector version A.06.11
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)
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In 2011, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 1 338 users and 1 311 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6 412 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 23 006 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 2011 there were performed 1 064 trademark searches and 40 searches on bibliographic data.
The Office’s reading room serves as a WIPO deposit library as well. The deposit library fund includes 142 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 trademark 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 in International Trademarks Database ROMARIN, in European trademark databases CTM-online and TMview
-searches upon request - orders in written and on-line form
-registry information provided in the reading room
-CD-ROM workstations available in the reading room
At present, traditional methods of searching trademarks (card catalogue) are not used.
Trademark 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)
-Nice Classification (9-th edition)
-Vienna Classification (6-th edition)
-trademark classifications and related information
-annual technical reports on trademark information (2002-2011)
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 continued also in 2011. Representatives of centres participated at the conference organised by the Office in April on the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day and at two-day meeting of the Office’s electronic services users in May. Moreover representatives of centres acting in CVTI SR Bratislava and SNK Martin participated at the conference PATLIB, which took place in the Hague.
The European Patent Office included the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava in the pilot project of re-orientation of PATLIB centres. The goal of the project is introduction of new innovative and supporting services and co-operation with regional organisations to support innovations. In 2011 the PATLIB centre in CVTI continued in activities of EPO pilot project.
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 with InnoInfo centres continued also in 2011 particularly in the field of education and seminar organisation. The seminar “Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Protection” took place in the premises of University Technology Incubator in Bratislava in the end of January. Local entrepreneurs and representatives of institutions for science and research support met at the two-day event Intellectual Property Protection in Prešov in May. The topic of September seminar organized by Regional Advisory and Information Centre in Prešov was Monitoring Technology and Competitiveness through Patent and Trademark databases. The Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Trenčín organised the Brokerage Event ELO SYS 2011 in October and in November co-organised the seminar on innovations financing possibilities for small and medium enterprises.
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 filling.
Information Centre provided totally 7 115 information in 2011. 5 545 information was provided by the telephone, 304 information was provided personally, 1 067 by e-mail, 197 by post. 1605 information thereof concerned registry data, 911 were of general nature, 449 related to fees and 622 information concerned patents, 247 utility models and 17 supplementary protection certificates as such. Information Centre was moved to the premises freely accessible to public in order to improve the accessibility particularly in handling with personal consultations with the Office visitors. Concurrently the processes for services providing 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 industrial property awareness, to support innovations, creativity and competitiveness of small and medium enterprises are the primary goals of industrial rights pre-diagnostics performed by the IPO SR experts since 2008. During 2011 the Office employees visited 49 companies from all Slovakia. Although filing applications is not the primary goal of the pre-diagnostics totally 105 applications in 4 year were received since introduction this service.
URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of trademark 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 trademark register, which is kept by the Office with the possibility of simple and advanced search or browsing results. Data concerning in particular pending trademark applications, all filed applications or registered trademarks 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., trademark search service(s) and trademark 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 TMview http://tmview.europa.eu/tmview/welcome.html?language=sk
-service CETMOS (Central European Trade Mark Observation Service) http://www.upv.sk/?cetmos
Information services offered by the Office, see the part “Information services available to the public“, chapter VI.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information
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In 2002 the IPO SR stopped the participation in the joint ESPACE TRACES CD-ROM project (Trademarks of BG, CZ, HU, PL, RO and SK).
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)
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World Intellectual Property Day
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?ipo-sr-activities-for-smes
The IPO SR employees and invited guests, including the Vice-President of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market Christian Archambeau, celebrated the World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD) on April 27, 2011. Its central idea was Designing the Future. The Opening was preceded by Ceremonial granting the Patent Instrument to the University of Žilina in Žilina; the document related to the 10,000th patent granted by the Office. Working part of the WIPD 2011 at the IPO SR consisted of the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia XI. It was aimed at issues of public relations and related marketing tools to reach more effective communication with target groups. April 27, 2011 was also the Open Day at the Office for everybody who wanted to obtain the information on intellectual property issues and on Office’s activities.
International Seminars
In December 6, 2011 the IPO SR organised in co-operation with the World Intellectual Property Organization the Seminar Strategic Use of Trademarks for Business Development. More than 50 participants from all Slovakia – patent attorneys, small and medium enterprises or universities representatives – attended the Seminar. In December 20 – 21, 2011 the Regional Meeting of Experts on Traditional Knowledge Issues in Transitional Economy Countries was organised in Košice by the Office in co-operation with the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.
Co-operation with Universities
The Office in co-operation with the Technical University of Košice (TUKE) and the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) organised in the premises of University Library of TUKE the 3rd year of the Conference Intellectual Property Protection at Universities on November 10. The Conference was aimed particularly at expert public such as Universities scientific and pedagogic employees, students of technical, natural and also humane sciences; more than 70 participants, particularly from Košice Universities, took part in the Conference. Also co-operation with the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica related to preparation of expert seminar in the premises of the Faculty of Economy in Banská Bystrica (15.4. and 29.4.2011) within the Project Module 6 Intellectual Property Protection on the base of the Co-operation Agreement between MBU and IPO SR.
New portal - WWW.PATENTOVAT.SK
In the beginning of April 2011 the Industrial Property Office of SR in its effort to increase the public awareness on intellectual property importance and protection made a new internet portal – www.patentovat.sk – available. The portal is for public. Its goal is to popularise intellectual property and to provide information on industrial property protection and related services and products of the Office.
Editorial Activities
The Office publishes classifications, collections, expert monographs, acts and related commentaries, promotional and information brochures, leaflets or translations of WIPO and 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 first time in electronic and web;
- The Collection from the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia XI, (CD);
- The Collection from the Conference Intellectual Property Protection at Universities III (CD);
- Regulations on Industrial Property Protection in SR, 5th edition;
- The Magazine Intellectual Property, in colour, web version with quarterly delay;
- Publication Value Exchange;
- Publication At Home with Inventions;
- Information brochures:
Making a Trademark
Looking Good
Learn from the History, Create the Future
Your Own World of Intellectual Property
Poster (10 Deadly Sins of Inventor – WIPO)
Bookmark – www.patentovat.sk
Exhibitions
The Office in its premises opened the exhibition FAIRPLAY DESIGN (studio: Industrial Design: Ferdinand Chrenka and his students; AFAD Bratislava) on the occasion of the WIPD. The Industrial Property Office has worked on events Researchers Night 2011, which took place simultaneously in several cities in Slovakia. The Office also participated in 63rd International Trade Fair Ideas – Inventions – New Products IENA 2011 in German Nuremberg in the common stand of patent offices “Internationales Patent-Informationszentrum”.
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 2010 to May 2011 the Modules:
A – Basics of Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright,
B – Creativity, its Management, Marketing and Economy, and
C – Information on Intellectual Property, were running.
22 graduates finished the Modules in June 2011. 25 participants entered the education programme from September 2011; 19 participants are external and 6 internal. This proves that the interest of public in education in intellectual property protection area has been increasing permanently. Final theses of graduates are available in the Office’s reading room as study materials for public.
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
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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 trademark-related news regarding the Office
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X. Other relevant matters