Annual Technical Report 2004 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Australia (SCIT/ATR/TM/2004/AU)
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.
I. Evolution of registration activities
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(Please Note: AU provides for multi-class filings. Figures below are in classes)
Applications:
2003 - 73671
2004 - 85462
16.0% increase – continuing upward trend
Registrations:
2003 - 50015
2004 - 53605
7.2% increase – reversal of previous downward trend
Madrid – International Registrations Designating Australia
2003 – 4695
2004 – 5582
19.0% increase – continuing upward trend
Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year
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The Australian Official Journal of Trade Marks (the trade mark gazette) is published weekly. There are 50 issues per year - the Easter and Christmas weeks being excluded. The Journal is available on-line, free of charge, via the IP Australia internet site and contains both bibliographic text, and images. Hard copy journal publication has been discontinued.
Standard Notices and Letters are produced via the Trade Marks mainframe business application as XEROX XICS output.
Examination Reports are generated in Word.
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information
The Official Journal contains the following announcements:
Applications Filed
Applications Accepted for Registration
Amendments and Changes
Applications Lapsed Withdrawn and Refused
Trade Marks Registered
Assignment, Transmittals and Transfers
Cancellation of Entries in Register
Renewal of Registration of Trade Marks
Opposition Proceedings
Removal for Non-use Proceedings
Notices
The IP Australia web-site also provides access to a variety of forms and publications, IP legislations, Official Notices, Hearings Decisions, manuals, etc.
Mass storage media and microforms used
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Australia classifies goods and services according to Nice Version 8.
Australia does not use the Vienna Classification scheme to classify the figurative elements of marks. Rather figurative elements are classified (and searched) according to a thesaurus of device terms developed by the Office. For example, the WIPO device is indexed as follows:
1 ANNULUS 2 CONCENTRIC
3 HAND 4 PEN
5 BOOK,OPEN 6 GRAIN,EAR
7 VIOLIN 8 WHEEL,GEAR
9 MUSICAL-INSTRUMENT 10 CIRCLE+
11 ROUND 12 ROUND+
Each device term may then be used as a search criteria, either singularly or in combination, in order to locate marks with similar device characteristics.
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
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As mentioned previously, the primary business system is the ADABAS Natural mainframe application, TMARK, running on IBM zOS. TMARK interfaces to a number of satellite applications, eg Word for production of reports, XICS for publishing output, a couple of mid-range applications for EDI under the Madrid Protocol, an automated data capture utility (ADC) for capturing data received electronically, and ATMOSS. Document management is handled via TRACS.
All processing relating to the life-cycle of a trade mark (apart from financial processing) is conducted within this environment. The Trade Mark Office, along with the Patent and Design Offices in IP Australia is in the process of transitioning our business applications from the mainframe to our strategic server infrastructure environment. This environment includes Sun Solaris, Oracle RDBMS, J2EE, BEA Weblogic, and Objective EDMS.
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used
The Canberra Office has an ethernet-based LAN providing high speed bandwidth for each user desktop connection. A frame relay-based WAN provides connections from Canberra to each State Capital. A DMZ-based, DSD approved firewall using IAN ports (Internet IEFT Assigned Numbers) provides the secure means to allow access from internal systems/users to external entities such as the Internet or public/private organisations.
The current SOE includes Windows XP with Office SE 2003, IE 6.0 SP1, and Lotus Notes.
VI. Administration of trademark 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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IP Australia has provided public education and awareness training as part of an APEC Trade and Investment Liberalisation and Facilitation (TILF) two year project for Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia. The core component of the program relates to the development of websites, promotional documentation and information, structures and implementation strategies for seminars to enable economies to effectively deliver IP public education and awareness programs.
As part of the Regionally Focussed Action Plan (RFAP) IP Australia has been providing assistance to 14 Forum Island countries in relation to improving IP awareness.
IP Australia hosted a visit by the Director General, Professor Abdul Bari Azed, and senior officials from the Indonesian Directorate General of Intellectual Property Rights (DGIPR).
A senior IP Australia official participated as part of the Australian delegation at the sixth session of the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore held in Geneva.
The Registrar of Trade Marks attended the Twelfth Session of the Standing Committee on the Law of Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications (SCT) held in Geneva between 26 and 30 April 2004
IX. Other relevant matters
None