Annual Technical Report 2011 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Poland (CWS/ATR/PI/2011/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 2011, the PPO received 4,069 patent applications under the national procedure, out of which 3,878 were filed by domestic applicants and 191 by foreign applicants.
In comparison with the year 2010 the number of domestic patent applications under the national procedure decreased by 20.1%.
54 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 210 patent applications under the PCT procedure and 113 European patent applications with the aim of seeking protection abroad.
The total number of patent applications filed in 2011 amounted to 4,123.
In 2011, the Office received from foreign applicants 20 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 2011, 35,612 patents remained in force, out of which 17,127 were European patents.
In the scope of IT field, the following projects were introduced:
- Brand-new PPO's website was launched in 2011.
- The RegisterPlus software application for patents, utility models, SPC and EP validated in Poland to be 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)
http://pubserv.uprp.pl/PublicationServer/index.php?jezyk=en (statistics)
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 2011, the following publications (periodicals) were issued:
- "Biuletyn Urzedu Patentowego" (first level Official Gazette - bi-weekly) 26 numbers, i.e. 5,080 copies.
- "Wiadomosci Urzedu Patentowego" (second level Official Gazette - monthly) 12 numbers, i.e. 2,207 copies.
- "Dziennik Urzedowy UPRP" (The PPO Journal - annual) 4 issues and index i.e. 350 copies.
- 2010 Annual Report of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland, 1,050 copies.
- Patent Specifications (type B documents) 2,765 titles - 62,721 copies.
- Protection Specifications of Utility Models 490 titles - 2,450 copies.
- One-off publication of Industrial Property Law of 30 June 2000. Legal status as of 1 February 2011 - 1,350 copies.
In the scope of IT field the following activities were performed:
- Maintenance and development 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 RegisterPlus 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.
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.
- All examiners have access to the internal and external on-line data bases.
- The digital representation of patent and utility models documentation is delivered directly to the staff's work stands.
- 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
- In 2011 PPO gave 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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In 2011, the electronic 2011.01 version of the International Patent Classification was used at the PPO, while the electronic 2012.01 version was being prepared to be launched in 2012.
Hybrid system indexing
n/a
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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).
- Abstracts and full-text PDFs of PL documents are uploaded via Secure FTP to the EPO's Espacenet search system on a half/monthly basis; translations into English of PL abstracts are continuously delivered to the Worldwide database of Espacenet
IV. Search file establishment and upkeep
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- RegisterPlus based on Soprano and ePhoenix database.
- 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 was implemented.
- In 2011 PPO gave 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.
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
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 is then disseminated via RegisterPlus system - temporarily for the in-house purposes only, it will be launched for the public in 2012.
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, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 and Debian 5 GNU/Linux. 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 50 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 Tivoli Storage Management, 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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Within the co-operation with the PATLIB centres in Poland, the Office continued supplying them with foreign and Polish patent documentation and literature. In 2011, the Office sent:
- 260 discs with full text databases on CD-ROM.
- 16 discs with patent literature.
- 1,497 copies of Polish industrial design and utility model specifications.
- 1,196 copies of first level Official Gazette.
- 644 copies of the second level Official Gazette.
- 156 copies of the "Official Journal of the PPO".
- 39 copies of Index of the Official Journal for the year 2010.
- 72 copies of Industrial Property Law of 30 June 2000. Legal status as of 1February 2011.
- 39,598 copies of patent specifications for the year 2011.
- 39 copies of 2010 Annual Report of the Patent Office of the Republic of Poland.
Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and patent information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)
The Office continues to offer its services via Online Services Portal at: http://ipu.uprp.pl.
Previous and current versions of the latest IPC edition in Polish language are continually offered at: http://ipu.uprp.pl/ipcpub.
Polish patent and utility model information within Polish language version of Espacenet is systematically expanded, and the Office's website is linked into the EPO Espacenet search facility.
URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of patent applications
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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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Annual Reports (the content has both EN and PL versions):
http://www.uprp.pl/ (Annual Reports’ box).
if necessary, provide further information related to the topics referred to in the current ATR
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In 2011, 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.
In 2011 all EPTOS sets were migrated to virtual environment (VMware technology) and upgraded to version 9.1. Applications are now 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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