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Merely 218 applications for industrial designs filed with the Office in 2004 is in total 9.9 % decrease in comparison with 2003. From the foreign applicants the most active are Germans (33), Czechs (26) and Dutch (10).
Although the Slovak applicants filed by 13 applications less than in 2003. Share of domestic application makes 54 %.
On December 31, 2004 there were 1,677 valid industrial designs in the Slovak Republic.
For the comparison we provide statistics of the years 1999 - 2004 in industrial design area:
designs_tab.doc - Statistical data of industrial designs
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Publication of industrial designs
The Office publishes registered industrial designs and industrial designs with the extended term of validity in the Official Gazette.
Industrial designs information forms part of the Official Gazette - “Vestník ÚPV SR”, covering all industrial property rights in one publication. Paper form issued monthly is published in standard size A4, paperback and usually in cca 300 pages. In 2004 the Gazette had a circulation of 250 copies, of which 107 were distributed by subscription. Other copies were sent free of charge to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO, within the frame of industrial property information exchange to foreign offices and as the statutory copies according to the act as well. Electronic form of Official Gazette, available to the public in the Internet free of charge, contains searchable data.
The following numbers of industrial designs were published in the Official Gazette 2004:
238 registered industrial designs
136 registered industrial designs with the extended term of validity
MS Office 97, QuarkXpress 5.0 for Windows and Corel Draw 10, Photoshop 6.0, FineReader 6.0, Adobe Acrobat 5.05 CE, SLEX99 – Lexicon of Slovak language are used for the data processing; the photocomposing and printing is carried out by the Office.
The Desk-Top Publishing technology is 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 industrial design announcements arranged in following main chapters:
- list of registered industrial designs (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of registered industrial designs (arranged according to the classes of the Locarno Classification)
- list of registered industrial designs with the extended term of validity (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of registered industrial designs with the extended term of validity (arranged according to the classes of the Locarno Classification)
- bibliographic data of registered industrial designs with postponed publishing
- bibliographic data of published registered industrial designs after expiration of adjourment term of publishing
- official decisions (cancellation, etc.)
- assignments of rights and other changes of owners
- cancellation of the industrial designs registration
- partial cancellation of the industrial designs registration
- registration of licensing contracts in respect of industrial designs
- termination of licencing contracts
- right of lien
- corrections of names, addresess, dates and mistakes
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied
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The actual version of the International Classification for Industrial Design (Locarno Classification) is used for classifying of industrial designs, which are classified by Office´s experts.
Bibliographic data and processing for search purposes
The WIPO Standard ST.80 is used for patent and utility model bibliographic data coding in all relevant outcomes or records. All bibliographic data are being processed in electronic database form. The fully searchable data are updated and made available to the public daily in the Internet.
IV. Search file establishment and upkeep
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Industrial design search file of the Office comprises the industrial design collection of the Slovak Republic and also former Czechoslovak Republic.
The IPO SR built in 2004 the manual industrial design search system in the card catalogue form, arranged according to international industrial design classification, updated regularly.
Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file
In 2004, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR received industrial design gazettes from the following states and organizations: AT, BA, BE, BG, BR, BX, CH, CZ, DE, EE, FR, GB, HR, HU, IT, LT, LV, MD, MK, PL, PT, RO, RU, Sl, UA, US a WIPO.
V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs
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The online industrial design database serves for all industrial design procedures and searches. Select registry 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 industrial designs.
External databases
Czech registered industrial designs database in the Internet
WIPO International Design Bulletin CD-ROM
OHIM - Industrial Designs Database
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics, administrative support, etc.)
The Office automation management system contains industrial designs registry (data since 1991) using “INVENTIO” software.
Administrative databases based on Lotus Domino.
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), data carriers used
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In 2004, the office’s reading room has been visited by 1.828 users and 1.307 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 7.657 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 27.999 copies of patent 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 2004 there were performed 332 patent searches, 2.923 trademark searches and 43 design searches based on 1.125 written and 118 personally requests.
The office’s reading room including the search workstation opens daily from 7:30 to 15:00 except the Wednesday (8:00-16:00).
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 library provides following services to the public:
- sales of the Official Gazette in paper form
- on-line searches in Office’s search system, self-service during a personal visit
- general information - provided by Office’s experts
- searches upon request - orders in written and online form.
Industrial design information on the World Wide Web:
- general information
- information about Office activities (seminars, training courses, etc.)
- application guide and forms
- relevant laws
- Annual Reports
- selected registry data
- Official Gazette
- order forms (searches, non-patent literature)
- Locarno Classification (8-th edition)
In 2004, the IPO SR has continued in its co-operation with four patent information centres and six contact and information points of the IPO SR, which were established in 2003 under assistance of the EPO for the purpose of raising awareness about IP rights. The centres and points in the State Scientific Library in Banská Bystrica and Košice and other regional and district libraries in Zvolen, Žilina, Prešov, Trenčín, Trnava a Nitra as well as in the Slovak National Library in Martin and Slovak Centre of Scientific a Technical Information in Bratislava were provided with equipment (personal computers, access to Internet etc.) according to bilateral programm of co-operation with EPO. Training courses relating to how to make available industrial property information to the public were also provided by the Office to the library’s staff.
Patent information centres
The main goal of patent information centres is to provide complex information services in the field of patent, trademark and industrial design information, search services, consultation and metodical assistance concerning the searching of information, making copies of required patent documents, printing records from electronic form etc. Every patent information centre serve as a contact and information point.
Contact and information points
The main goal of contact and information points of the Office is to inform the public about where can apply for protection of the results of creative activity, and particularly to inform the general public about the existence of the national institution, which protects immaterial goods, industrial property.
The Office supported the activity of centres and contact and information points by regular sending Slovak patent specifications in paper also on optical discs (fulltext ESPACES-PRECES CD-ROM, bibliographic data thereof on ESPACES ACCESS PRECES ) as well as announcements concerning industrial property rights in the Official Gazette form, all information materials and recources made available to the public, publications published by Office, information pamphlets, documents and forms relating to applying for protection of industrial property rights, access to office´s databases via Internet etc.
Information and consultancy points for innovations
In 2004, the IPO SR established four information and consultancy points of the IPO SR for innovations-Innoinfo in Banská Bystrica, Martin, Žilina and Čadca to support small and medium entrepreneurs, or technical universities. The new information and consultancy points will provide the basic information on industrial protection.
New workplace of the IPO SR
The Office has opened its new workplace in the building of the Ministry of Finance in Bratislava. It offers especially searches in the fields of trademarks, designs and patents. In the new workplace, there is a filing room and room for discussions and negotiations .
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information
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Training courses for national participants
Four Module Accredited COURSE ON INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY conducted by the Intellectual Property Institute of the Industrial Property Office for office employees and professional public continued in 2004 with 17 participants, out of which 7 employees of IPO SR. An excursion to M.O.C Stará Turá – a factory manufacturing dental and medical machinery – was introduced for the first time in order to become acquainted with IP processes in SMEs conditions. Course continues in 2005/06 with module D. Final exams for students participating in modules form 2004, are planned in october 2005 and may 2006.
Supporting activities:
CONFERENCE
Almost 70 participants took part in the fourth year of the Conference “Intellectual Property in Slovakia IV” held on the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day, the main topic of which was the entry of the SR into the EU in relation to the intellectual property right. On this occasion, an open door day of the IPO was held on April 27, during which the Office opened its non-public premises to people. Excursion was connected with presentation of the Office and provision of information and consultancy services.
LECTURES AND SEMINARS
In April 2004, a series of three two-day seminars on enforcement of the intellectual property rights dedicated for the Slovak regional judges and especially for the employees of customs administration, culminated. It was organised with the help of the EPO in cooperation with WIPO. The Office collected contributions by 14 authors plus selection of decisions by the Supreme Court of the SR on customs issues and has published it as a manual “Intellectual Property and Customs Duties”.
The Office and the European Patent Office cooperated with the UMB Centre for lifelong education on three seminars on protection of intellectual property dedicated for the wide public and on the conference “Development of Technical Creativity and Industrial Protection of the Small and Medium-sized Companies”.
Lectures for students of economic, technical, pedagogical, environmental and law faculties of universities in Slovakia.
Special lectures in cooperation with the Slovak Association of Inventors and Innovators, Chamber of Patent Attorneys aimed at ministries and branches of economy and defense.
JOURNAL
Awareness of the public in the field of intellectual property is increased also by the professional magazine INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY magazine (“Duševné vlastníctvo”) issued quarterly by the Office. In the year 2004, the magazine became more varied in terms of genres, new columns were added and the Office activities started to be presented more expressively. Style of writing of individual articles has been partly changed; the articles are written in a more popular style to appeal to wider public. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY magazine was issued 4 times in 2004 covering all relevant fields in IP rights, copyright, trade names, domain names, logos, licenses, creativity and management with 44 original extensive papers and a number of translations, news, decisions of Industrial Property Office and Supreme Court etc.
IPO SR issued its electronic magazine on IP “ E-zine” by 7 issues also in 2004.
EXHIBITIONS
The IPO SR endeavours to increase the awareness of the public in the field of industrial property by means of presentations in fairs and exhibitions. During the previous year, the Office exhibited and provided free information and consultations at the 25th International Building Fair CONECO in Bratislava, at the 35th International Chemical Fair INCHEBA in Bratislava and at the 11th International Engineering Fair in Nitra.
Possibilities of the IP rights protection in Slovakia were presented at three international events abroad—at the 5th International Exhibition of Inventions, Works of Fine and Applied Arts GENIUS–EUROPE, at the Exhibitions of Ideas and Innovations, IENA 2004, in Nuremberg where we shared the stand, called the “Internationales Patent-Informationszentrum”, together with the European patent offices and in our own stand at the 53rd Exhibition of Innovation, Research and New Technology, EUREKA, in Brussels. For the first time, the Office enabled three Slovak protected products of extraordinary technical and designer value to present at the exhibition EUREKA.
PUBLICATIONS
During the year 2004, the Office has published seven professional publications. Except for two miscellanies from conferences and the updated collection of industrial regulations of the Slovak Republic, the Office has published author publications by Ing. Ľ. Dibdiak “International Trademarks According to the Madrid System” and re-edition of the “Marketing of Thoughts” by prof. M. Tuma. At the end of the year, we managed to publish a work by a reputable publicist Dr. Ján Barica “Small Slovak Pantheon of Science and Technology”, in which the author presents 115 of the most significant Slovak scientists and technicians. Publication of this work corresponds with ambitions of the Office to get into awareness of the public, especially the youth, for which the encyclopaedia is dedicated.
Awareness of the public in the field of intellectual property is increased also by the professional magazine Intellectual Property, issued quarterly by the Office. In the year 2004, the magazine became more varied in terms of genres, new columns were added and the Office activities started to be presented more expressively. Style of writing of individual articles has been partly changed; the articles are written in a more popular style to appeal to wider public.
OTHER
The OPEN DOOR DAY celebrating the World Intellectual Property Day was held on April 25, 2003 in IPO SR premises.
IPO SR created a new platform for dissemination of information on IP importance among SMEs and technical universities students by establishment of Information and Advisory Points for Innovation – INNOINFO. In mentioned year IPO SR started operations with INNOINFO in Banská Bystrica, Čadca, Martin and Žilina, more are planned for 2005. INNOINFO were established in business incubators, universities and regional development agencies.
In the framework of newly launched cooperation with media, IPO SR provided series of radio broadcasted advisory sessions in Slovak Radio, TV reports and spots in TV Markiza and Slovak Television STV as well as popularization of IP field and IPO SR activities in print media.
IX. Other relevant matters