Annual Technical Report 2003 on Patent Information Activities submitted by The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (SCIT/ATR/PI/2003/MK)
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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
In order to facilitate the process of European and world integration of Republic of Macedonia, one of the main goals of the Office was to achieve a higher degree of harmonization of the national legislation with legislation of TRIPS agreement and EU directives. During the year 2003, intensive work has been put into the Law Changes and Additions to the Law on industrial Property (Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia no. 47/02 and 42/03) which was enacted in June 2002 and became effective starting from 1st of July 2003 or 1st of January 2004, as well as the preparations of the bylaws.
In relation to the old Law, the new Law includes an additional certificate for protection of patents. With this change, one may prolong the validity of patent right for more than 20 years for those inventions pertaining to medical product or plants whose commercialization requires a prior administrative procedure to be carried out. Different solution in compliance with international conventions and treaties has been determined with introduction of minimum requirement that have to be fulfilled in order to convert date of receipt of submission into a date of filing of application.
The number of filed patent applications in 2003 has increased in comparison to 2002 by 80.5% primarily due to the increase of the number of patent applications filed by foreign applicants. According to statistical data this Office in 2003 received 435 patent applications, or 47 domestic and 388 foreign.
The structure of the filed applications according to the International Patent Classification shows that section A (consumables) has the biggest share or 43.5%, followed by section C(chemistry, metallurgy) 29.4%, which presented the structure of the production capacities in Macedonia.
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information
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State Office of industrial property of the Republic of Macedonia organizes seminars in purpose of nourishing a process of continuous innovation of knowledge of the employees and other subjects involved in the development of this area.
On the 18th and 19th of March this Office with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) organized the national seminar on the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) in Skopje which integrated the overall PCT procedure and specific things that stem from the full implementation of the Agreement.
From the 3rd to the 5th of June this Office and the European Patent Office organized seminar entitled “Macedonian Practice and the European Patent System” which included whole procedure for registration of European Patent.
Within the framework of the regional CARDS program (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization) of European commission a number of introductionary seminars were included for the promotion of the program and targets of this project.
As part of the international cooperation, and particularly International Patent classification representatives from this Office have attended couple of sessions organized on different subject matters as formation of a Master Classification Database, considering of new key words and official indices on the 8th edition of the IPC(International Patent Classification), specific problems relating to chemistry and illustration of chemical formulas in the electronic sphere.
WIPO Academy organized seminars on industrial property where representatives from the Office were introduced with experience of other Offices for protection of industrial property rights.
Office representatives pay special attention to bilateral activities, and great numbers of contacts of this kind have been made during the year 2003.
Inventors from the Republic of Macedonia traditionally presented their inventions at the 52th International Exhibit of Inventions, Researches and New Technologies “Brussels Eureka 2003” in Brussels. The State Office of Industrial Property and the Association of Inventors and Authors of Technical Advances organized the presentation of the inventors.
The celebration of the 10th anniversary of the existence and operation of the State Office of Industrial Property was enriched by awarding of the Patent of the Year Award 2003. The World Organization for Intellectual Property gave the awards for “Best Invention”, “Woman Inventor” and “Youngest Inventor”. Many guests from Macedonia and abroad attended this manifestation on which were mentioned historical overview of the achieved results, experiences and attainments of the Office cooperated with other institutions.
From the 10th to the 12th of November the European patent Office, the European Commission and the Ministry of Economy of Luxemburg organized annual conference of EPIDOS 2003 and the international exhibit PATINOVA where participants presented the experiences from their respective field of work.
IX. Other relevant matters
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| 1. | Classification is allotting one or more classification symbols (e.g., IPC symbols) to a patent application, either before or during search and examination, which symbols are then published with the patent application.
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| 2. | Preclassification is allotting an initial broad classification symbol (e.g., IPC class or subclass, or administrative unit) to a patent application, using human or automated means for internal administrative purposes (e.g., routing an application to the appropriate examiner). Usually preclassification is applied by the administration of an office.
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| 3. | Reclassification is the reconsideration and usually the replacement of one or more previously allotted classification symbols to a patent document, following a revision and the entry into force of a new version of the Classification system (e.g., the IPC). The new symbols are available on patent databases.
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