Annual Technical Report 2012 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Poland (CWS/ATR/PI/2012/PL)
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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In 2012 a significant progress has been made in the number of electronic filings, both via e-forms for inventions and utility models in the Online Services Portal and in the eOLF system.
Filings to the Office are increasingly more often preceded by searches in the electronic collections than in the paper holdings.
Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year
In 2012, the PPO received 4,604 patent applications under the national procedure, out of which 4,407 were filed by domestic applicants and 197 by foreign applicants.
In comparison with the year 2011 the number of domestic patent applications under the national procedure increased by 13.6%.
53 applications filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty entered the phase of examination carried out by the Office (so-called national phase).
Under the international procedure, as the receiving Office, the PPO received from domestic applicants 173 patent applications under the PCT procedure and 168 European patent applications with the aim of seeking protection abroad.
The total number of patent applications filed in 2012 amounted to 4,657.
In 2012, the Office received from foreign applicants 26 applications for the grant of supplementary right of protection for medicinal products and plant protection products in order to protect rights under Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC).
On 31 December 2012, 41,242 patents remained in force, out of which 22,877 were European patents.
In the scope of IT field, the following projects were introduced:
- The Register Plus software application for patents, utility models, trademarks, SPC and EP validated in Poland was launched for the public in 2012.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to patents
Statistics are accessed at the following URLs:
http://www.uprp.pl (Annual Reports' box)
Detailed statistics may be bespoke provided (write to http://ipu.uprp.pl/portal/web/guest/kontakt).
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information
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In 2012, the following publications (periodicals) were issued:
- "Biuletyn Urzedu Patentowego" (first level Official Gazette - bi-weekly) 26 numbers, i.e. 4,423 copies.
- "Wiadomosci Urzedu Patentowego" (second level Official Gazette - monthly) 12 numbers, i.e. 1,969 copies.
- 2011 Annual Report of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland - 1,100 copies.
- Patent Specifications (type B documents) 2,735 titles - 58,334 copies.
- Protection Specifications of Utility Models 530 titles - 2,120 copies.
In the scope of IT field the following activities were performed:
- Maintenance of the PL Publication Server - the electronic holdings of PL patent specifications since 1924; PL utility models since 2001 and EP validations in Poland since June 2005. The holdings appear in PDF format; may be downloaded either in XML or zipped format containing XMLs and PDFs; references to both Espacenet retrieval system and EPO Register Plus were set up; please consult: http://pubserv.uprp.pl/PublicationServer/index.php?jezyk=en
- Espacenet - under EPTOS 9.1. (please see below: X. Other relevant matters) - efforts are made to publish the entire collection of all PL applications and granted patents published since 1924 (both collections on the PL data base and the Worldwide database), please notice: http://pl.espacenet.com. The images from the BNS Server were shared as published documents.
- PPO enabled deep-linking from the EPO Patent Register to its own national register.
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information
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- Word processing is carried out using MS 2007 Office and the MS Windows XP is commonly used. Replacement of the operating systems on MS Windows 7 is in progress.
- All examiners have access to the internal and external on-line databases.
- The digital representation of patent and utility models documentation is delivered directly to the staff's work stands via ePhoenix.
- All staff has access to the Internet and Intranet and enjoys the MS 2007 Outlook variety of facilities through the networked PCs which are connected to a local area network.
- The public reading-room is equipped with terminals and 24-inch monitors, and our conference and training rooms are furnished with modern audiovisual means.
- The online filings in the online system - eOLF have been successfully continued, enabling the electronic patent and utility model filings under the national procedure ,
- The PPO gives the possibility to apply for patent and utility models also via the e-forms available on the Online Services Portal.
(New) techniques used for the generation of patent information (printing, recording, photocomposing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), etc.)
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- IP information on patents and utility models: http://ipu.uprp.pl
- Publication Server - Polish patents (B), utility models (Y) and EP translations into Polish (T): http://pubserv.uprp.pl (user interface in 3 languages - PL, EN and FR).
- Polish patents and utility models under Polish version of Espacenet (http://pl.espacenet.com) with possibility of the redirection to the Worldwide data base containing PL collections (bibliographic data in English).
- Online Services Portal with access to patent gazettes, classifications, e-filings and patent attorney's directory: http://ipu.uprp.pl
III. Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents
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- Full-text patent and utility model documents together with abstracts are uploaded for search purposes to the modality databases.
- PDFs of the full-text PL patent, PL utility model and EP validation documents are uploaded to the Publication Server (it should be noted that either XMLs containing basic bibliographic data, or archives containing both XMLs and full-text PDFs may be downloaded) and to the ePhoenix.
- Full-text PDFs of PL documents are uploaded via Secure FTP to the EPO's Espacenet search system on a half/monthly basis.
IV. Search file establishment and upkeep
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- The Office has also its own internal retrieval system (TULIPAN) with access restricted exclusively to examiners within the Office. The system offers procedural data concerning patents and utility models in the course of the whole procedure. The integrated data base is also maintained for searches on filing and granting procedures with regard to patents and utility models, supported by the fee control system.
- In co-operation with the EPO, the software for submitting applications online was integrated in the online system - eOLF, and also the set of tools for the electronic dossier management - e-Phoenix is used.
- The PPO gives the possibility to apply for patent and utility models also via the e-forms available on the Online Services Portal.
External databases
The PPO's examiners use regularly the external on-line retrieval resources:
EPOQUENET Suite; hosted by Elsevier Information Systems - the chemistry Database Reaxys and full-text scientific database ScienceDirect; STN (the Scientific and Technical Information Network) offers information on a broad range of scientific fields.
Register Plus based on Soprano and ePhoenix database was published in 2012.
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Installed and adopted to work together are ePhoenix (electronic storage and access to our patent and case files) and Soprano (work-flow) systems. Register and legal status information are disseminated via Register Plus system.
Off-line systems provide information to examiners, lawyers and the accounting staff (payroll and finance-accounting system).
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used
- Completion of the virtualization servers and personal workstations based on the blade-type servers, running under VMware ESX Server, centrally administrated by the Virtual Centre Server. All, recently deployed servers were at once installed in the virtual environment. The virtualization software was upgraded to the newest version of vSphere. Concomitant with the task, the disk space for data within SAN disk-array subsystem was considerably increased.
- Workstations run under Windows XP environments, and server's operational systems are Microsoft Windows Server (2003 and 2008, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server (10 and 11) and Debian (5 and 6) GNU/Linux. Replacement of the operating systems on MS Windows 7 is in progress. The SAN mass storage network was configured in order to make disk-arrays available to the computing systems. All of workstations are secured by McAfee antivirus and antispam system. All network connections are based on CISCO and Alcatel equipment with 100 Mb access to the Internet.
- Server infrastructure for the Online Portal includes 9 application servers; 5 database servers; 10 TB build-up array; back-ups for HP Data Protector, Fujitsu FI-5900C scanner, 125 packages for the purposes of qualified signatures. On-Line Portal servers are supported by local UPSs and they are also hooked to Main power supply unit for the PPO.
- Back office hardware located in secured/zoned Data Centre with fire alarm and CTV system, redundant air-conditioning and technical floor.
- Modernization of the software edge firewall
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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Information on filings, post-grant procedure, opposition and appeal procedures, etc. are in details described within specific sections of our website which is also linked to our search services and databases.
http://www.uprp.pl - continues at: http://ipu.uprp.pl (Online Services Portal).
A variety of guides and other information materials are offered in PDF format through the Office's website.
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
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In 2012, the PPO participated in trainings and conferences organised by the European Patent Office (35 people). The events focused on issues, such as: Search reports and written opinions, EPOQUEnet functionalities and use, Novelty and Inventive Step, Computer implemented inventions: classification, search and examination practice, Patent documentation standards and tools for data exchange, IP for governmental officials and public decision makers, External corporate communication for IP offices: patents and society, New tasks for PATLIB centres in business context, Patent procedures and automation tools, Search matters, Patent information, Patent administration and documentation, Patent valuation.
Every year, the Polish Patent Office organises trainings to raise professional skills of its staff.
In 2012, after completing two-year training, 9 Office's employees obtained examiner's qualifications and 12 employees, who completed their training and passed the qualifying examinations, obtained assistant examiner's qualifications. In 2012 the aforementioned group gained access to "STN" platform, which comprises more than 200 scientific databases.
Additionally, language courses for PPO employees (languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian) were organised.
Within the framework of the training program for the PPO employees and patent attorneys 9 open lectures for 827 participants in total were given by external experts in innovation and industrial property.
Moreover, 303 staff members benefited from many specialist training courses organised by professional educational centres such as: National School of Public Administration, Mazovian Voivodeship Centre for Personnel Training, Operational Centre for Public Procurement, to name a few. The subject matter of the trainings included the issues of public procurement, administrative proceedings management, finances, information technologies and labour law.
In the framework of in-house trainings, 409 staff members were trained in: etiquette and diplomatic protocol, public procurement, public presentations, nanotechnology, copy right, labour law.
Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)
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In 2012, the incident and assistance managing system to users of our IT system was effectively carried out by the ServiceDesk solution - consistent with the ITIL practice.
All EPTOS sets are working in virtual environment (VMware technology) and are upgraded to version 9.1
Applications are separated – one application per virtual server. The test, maintenance and production versions work under the homogeneous Polish version of EPTOS ver. 9.1.
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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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