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In 2017, within the cooperation with the EUIPO, the IPO SR was involved in the projects CP 8 - the Use of Trade Mark other than Registered Trade Mark – and CP9 – the Distinctive Character of Three-Dimensional Trade Marks Containing Verbal and/or Visual Elements, if the shape itself has no distinctive character. The project CP 9 will be terminated in the 2nd half of 2018 by the adoption of the Joint Communication of the EU Member States.
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In 2017 the tools realised through the Projects of the Cooperation Fund continued to be used actively and were available not only to national Office experts but also to the public. These tools are tools eFiling, eServices and tools in applications CESTO (a common support tool for examiners), Quality (Centralising information on IP Office quality standards), Seniority and Similarity (IP Office assessments of similarity between goods and services), portals like TMview (trade mark search tool) and TMClass (trade mark classification tool).
More information is on the web site at https://www.tmdn.org/.
In 2014 also , the Project Common Central Database, implemented in EUIPO and used by experts of the Office´s Call Centre to build so-called Knowledge Database, was launched. It means that questions about EUTM or RCD or related questions are transferred by the Office´s experts to EUIPO experts to harmonise answers about EUTM or RCD.
The Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic, in co-operation cooperation with an external contractor, terminated the IPO Electronic Services project in the 1st quarter of 2017 and deployed the solution in full operation. The result of the project is making electronic forms available for electronic filing, modernisation of backend systems of the Office and access to modernised Webregisters on the Office's website in March 2017.
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Plans about trade mark information relate to implementation of a new system for making data from the Office registers available on the internet (Webregisters II) interconnected with European and international international systems (eSearch, TMview, Romarin,etc.).
Maintenance Maintenance and updating the search system for trade marks – Acsepto® containing bibliographic data and images of national, international trade marks marks and European Union trade marks.
The projects and activities mentioned in the item above were realised in the co-operation cooperation with the EUIPO.
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and registrations with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
In 2017, the Office received 2,962 trade mark applications; it is a 7.5 % decrease compared to the previous year.
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In 2017, 1,415 trade mark applications were filed under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks; it is a 23.6 % increase compared to the previous year.
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By December 31, 2017, there were 47,677 valid national trade marks within the territory of the Slovak Republic.
For comparison, there is the are statistics on trade mark applications and registrations of the years 2013 – 2017:
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Basic information for applicants related to IP subject matters applications are available on the website of the Office www.upv.sk. These are mainly application forms of particular type of industrial property right, legislation, instructions of the IPO SR and information for applicant, administrative fees, contact to expert assistance, etc. Below there are the individual areas of IP subject matters and relevant information sources with links to website of the Office, where they are available:
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Since February 1, 2014 the Central Public Administration Portal offers a form serving the general agenda, by means of which electronic filings can be made to every public institution in the Slovak Republic, thus also the IPO SR. From the 1st quarter of 2017, the Office also made specific application forms available to users during the deployment of the IPO Electronic Services Project. These services are most commonly used for trade mark proceedings. In the year 2017 had been filed this way more than 34% of the total number of the nationally registered trademarks.
In the cooperation with the EUIPO, the Office had in the past created and made available electronic forms that can be found on the website of the Office at the following link: http://www.upv.sk/?efiling-eservices-1. The applications filed using these forms cannot be signed with an electronic signature/guaranteed electronic signature. For this reason, it is necessary to subsequently provide them in paper form within one month.
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Request for declaration of invalidity of a trade mark
The Office offers a customer service for electronic filing a customer service. The helpdesk contact information is available on the website of the Office at http://www.upv.sk/?uzivatelsky-servis-a-helpdesk. At the helpdesk they may get general information on the e-filing, electronic forms created by the Office in the cooperation with the EUIPO and also troubleshoot potential issues.
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Goods and services are classified in accordance with the actual version of the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification). In the IPO SR exist an obligatory classifying system of goods and services by applicant according the said Classification. The last version of the International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification) is used as the code system of figurative elements of trade marks, which are classified by Office's expertexperts.
The WIPO Standard ST.60 is used for trade mark 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 on the Internet.
(ii) Use of electronic classification systems and pre-defined terms of the classification applied
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In accordance with the Act No.506/2009, the applicant is obliged to indicate in the application the goods and services for which the trade mark is filed, according to the International Classification (Nice Classification) accompanied with the appropriate number of this Classification. But there is no obligation for applicants to use pre-defined terms of the classification.
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In case of processing non-traditional marks, the Office receives three-dimensional marks and colorful signs, which shall be within the application processed in two-dimensional representationrepresentation within the application.
Other activities
Information Centre
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The Information Centre provided the clients of the Office with general information on IP protection for individual subject matters, on filing applications and related administration fees. Within the consultations also information on IP protection in the Slovak Republic and also abroad were was provided (European union trade mark, international trade mark).
The information were was provided personally, by phone (+421 48 4300 131), by post and e-mail address infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk.
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To increase the IP awareness, to support innovations, creativity and competitiveness of small and middle-sized enterprises is a primary goal of the IP pre-diagnostics, which have been provided by the IPO SR experts since 2008.
During 2017 32 3,2 pre-diagnostics focused on innovative companies were performed; e. g. SCP Ružomberok (Mondi), HERN Ltd. (former ZTS Strojárne Námestovo), Žilinská teplárenská Inc. Besides that employees visited also two research facilities – VULM Ltd. and NPPC, Research Institute of Animal Production. For the first time this consultation form was provided also to universities – Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University, Faculty of Security Engineering, University of Žilina and Department of Furniture and Interior Design, Technical University in Zvolen.
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The Gazette contains trade mark announcements arranged in following main chapters:
- published trade mark applications (list of published trade mark applications and their bibliographic data including the list of goods and services arranged according to the application numbers)
- registered trade marks without change after publishing an application (list of registered trade marks without change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign and their bibliographic data arranged according to the registration numbers)
- registered trade marks with change after publishing an application (list of registered trade marks with change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign and their bibliographic data arranged according to the registration numbers)
- registered trade marks based on trade mark applications resulting from the conversion of the international international registration to national application in accordance with the Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (list and bibliographic data of these registered trade marks arranged according to the registration number)
- renewed registrations of trade mark (list of renewed registrations of trade mark and their bibliographic data arranged according to the registration numbers)
- termination of the proceedings on trade mark applications
- refused trade mark applications
- terminated trade mark
- international registrations of trade marks
- bibliographic data of registered trade marks replaced by an international registration according to the article 4 bis of the Madrid Agreement and article 4 bis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (arranged according to the international registration numbers)
- changes of the trade mark proprietor (on the basis of the court decision)
- trade marks declared invalid
- trade marks revoked and declared invalid for certain goods and services
- assignments of rights and other changes of owners
- partial assignments
- changes of rights of disposal to trade marks (lien)
- changes of rights of disposal to trade marks (termination of lien)
- registration of licensing contracts in respect of trade marks
- termination of licensing contracts
- registration of sublicensing contracts in respect of trade marks
- termination of sublicensing contracts
- changes of data concerning trade mark owners/ applicants
- changes in the list of goods and services
- changes of wording or reproductions of trade mark
- changes in the representation of the trade mark
- corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes
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Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) and services available to external users; conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)
ON-LINE ONLINE DATABASES
http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its web sitewebsite.
Freely accessible national databases are:
- "Data extracted from Registers" https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/ also called called "Webregisters" give public access to data extracted from trade mark register, which are kept by the Office with the possibility of simple and advanced search or browsing results. Data concerning in particular pending trade mark applications, all filed applications or registered trade marks in the register are daily updated.
- “Classification Systems” http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia contains trade mark classifications used in Slovakia, links to other classifications systems for classifying trade marks used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia-ochranne-znamky
- Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR" may be viewed on the address http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette - each issue is available as a one PDF file containing the whole issue. In the archive on this webpage are available the previous volumes also in PDF format. The older volumes are gradually being added.
In the part ”International and EU databases” there are links to the most frequently used on-line online databases at http://www.upv.sk/?zahranicne-online-databazy#znamky.
Products and services
URL addresses providing basic information concerning the information services offered and information products issued by the Office and other relevant information relating to their accession and utilization:
- IPO SR Official Gazette http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette
- magazine “Intellectual Property” http://www.upv.sk/?dusevne-vlastnictvo
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
- IPO SR and IPO CZ publications http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
- IPO SR E-zine http://www.upv.sk/?e-zine-upv-sr
- on-line order forms http://www.upv.sk/?online-orders
- price list http://www.upv.sk/swift_data/source/pdf/Cennik.pdf
- data extracted from register https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/
- IPO SR reading room http://www.upv.sk/?other-services
- searches http://www.upv.sk/?searches
- search system TMview http://tmview.europa.eu/tmview/welcome.html?language=sk
- Information centre http://www.upv.sk/?information-centre
- Contacts http://www.upv.sk/?contacts
The Office library provides following services to the public:
- providing general information and professional consulting assistance for the public
- lending service (Official Gazettes, special monographs and reference literature) in the reading room
- sale of special monographs and periodical publications (“Intellectual Property” in paper, Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR” on CD-ROM) upon request or on the place
- reprographic services upon request or on the place
- on-line online searches in Office’s search system, self-service during a personal visit
- searches in International Trade marks Database ROMARIN, in European trade mark databases CTM-online and TMview
- searches upon request - orders in written and on-line online form
- registry information provided in the reading room
Trade mark and related information on the World Wide Web:
- general information
- information about Office activities (seminars, training courses, etc.)
- application guide and forms
- administrative fees
- relevant laws
- Annual Reports
- extracted data from register
- Official Gazette
- order forms (searches, Official Gazette, special literature)
- Nice Classification (11-2017)
- Vienna Classification (7-th edition)
- trade mark classifications and related information
- annual technical reports on trade mark information (2002-2017)
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The online trade mark database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national trade marks searches and purposes of proceedings on trade mark applications. Selected register data are available to the public in on the Internet at http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers.
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Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file
The Office regularly builds, keeps and completes regularly the examination file containing national trade mark applications and national registered trade marks, international trade marks with designation of the Slovak Republic under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol and trade marks conversed from European Union Trade marks applications or European Union Trade marks via the internal system Inventio. Selected data are available to the public in webregisters and are being updated daily.
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Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file: Trade mark gazettes also form also part of the available search files of the Office. In 2017, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR continued in receiving trade mark gazettes from the following states: Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan.
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In 2017, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 144 users. In total there were provided 290 borrowings borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 509 copies of patent documents and other industrial property 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 2017 there were performed , 436 trade mark searches, 8 searches on bibliographic data and 655 EUTM searches were performed for the EUIPO.
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In 2017, within the frame of mutual exchange of industrial-property information, the IPO SR continued in receiving of trade mark information in the form of official gazettes. Non-patent literature was acquired mostly by purchase or as a gift and processed, stored according to librarian rules and made available to the staff via in-house database system “Knižnica” to the staff.
Patent Information Centres and Contact and Information Points
Since 2003 the Office has cooperated with Contact and Information Points, while some of them are also the Patent Information Centres (PATLIB). They are located in state, regional and district libraries as well as in the Slovak National Library (SNK) in Martin and Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (CVTI) in Bratislava and within the University of Žilina as the Centre for Technology Transfer. Nowadays 11 Contact and Information Points are located in Slovakia and 5 of them are Patent Information Centres. A list of centres and points is available on the Office’s web site website at http://www.upv.sk/?partners.
The main goal of patent information centres is to provide complex information services in the field of patent, trade mark and industrial design information, search services, consultation and methodical assistance concerning the searching of information, making copies of required patent documents, printing records from electronic form etc. Every patent information centre serve serves as a contact and information point.
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The Office supported the activity of centres and contact and information points by regular sending Slovak patent specifications in paper form and the Official Gazette in electronic form, as well as all information materials and recourses 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 offices databases via Internet etc.
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The Office publishes classifications, miscellanies, expert monographs, acts and related commentaries, promotional and information brochures, leaflets or translations of the WIPO and the EPO original publications providing valuable information on industrial property field to the public.
Publication activities of the Office during 2017 include:
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On the occasion of the 20 th anniversary of the first issue of Duševné Vlastníctvo Magazine, the festive printed edition of the Magazine: Duševné Vlastníctvo 1997 – 2017 was issued.
For more information please see the list of publications issued by the Office at http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie.
WEBSITE OF THE OFFICE – www.upv.sk
The website of the Office www.upv.sk is a complex source of information for the public. In addition, it has been becoming the effective means of communication. It allows the public to quickly access quickly to information and databases related to IP. Both Slovak and English versions provide information about upcoming conferences, seminars and other events.
From March 1, 2017 new IPO SR webregisters are made available to the public. Databases contain selected data from IP subject matters registers kept by the Office and are updated daily. Details of the records provide bibliographic data, data on the state of applications and legal status, full texts of published patent documents in PDF format, trade mark and designs representations and sequence items.
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The Office also uses the portal www.patentovat.sk, linked to the social network Facebook to raise public awareness of the IP importance and protection. The Facebook page named The Industrial Property Office of SR – patentovat.sk is updated daily. The number of visitors , & fans of the Facebook page increased by 40, at the end of 2017 this number reached nearly 410.
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This year the Office participated for the second time in the competition National Prize for Design 2017 – Product Design organised by the Slovak Design Centre in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of SR. The 14 th 14th year of the National Prize for Design (NPD) was aimed at product design in 2017.
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The IPO SR tries to get closer to the public via several popularisation activities. The most important events are those organised on the occasion of the World IP Day, Researchers´ Night, various exhibitions in the IPO SR premises or educational programme Intellectual Property.
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According to the Council Regulation No. 2424/2015 on the Community trade mark, the Office carries out the searches on EU trade marks. The number of requests under the system applicable to applications for the EU trade marks has been stabilized at an average of 13 trade marks per week and 655 searches were processed in year 2017.
Similarly as in case of the services provided to the public, the search system Acsepto® has been used also for EUTM searches. It enables making searches of word, picture and combined trade marks within all designations applied for or protected in the territory of the Slovak Republic.
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