Annual Technical Report 2011 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by Russian Federation (CWS/ATR/ID/2011/RU)
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 expression "industrial designs" covers industrial designs and models. Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in this series of Annual Technical Reports.
I. Evolution of registration activities
Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to the previous year
The main trends in the development of activities in the field of industrial design information are defined by the Comprehensive Plan for Development of the Rospatent System up to 2015, the Rospatent Computerization Plan for 2011, and the Plan of Measures by the Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIPS) for the enhancement and development of its activities for 2011.
The main trends in the Plans include:
the creation of conditions to assist natural persons and legal entities in the fullest possible implementation of their rights to protection of the results of intellectual activity and means of individualization, and their enforcement;
a reduction in the time taken to examine applications, bearing in mind the forecast growth in the volume of applications received;
the provision of high-quality examination and protection titles issued;
increasing the effectiveness of information technology resources within the Rospatent system;
establishment of a State patent collection and provision of access thereto;
training specialists in the use and protection of intellectual property;
implementation of monitoring in the sphere of the use and legal protection of the results of scientific research, and design and technology work for civilian purposes, financed by the Federal Budget;
implementation of international cooperation.
Depending on the type of measure, the anticipated deadlines for implementation are planned between 2010 and 2015.
Work continues on extending the functions of the system for prosecuting applications for inventions, utility models and industrial designs in the Automated Database (ABD), while the patent information data published on the FIPS website on the latest annual fees paid has been expanded.
In 2011, operation continued of the Unified System for the Accounting of Fees in the context of using electronic bank payments for examinations of inventions, utility models and industrial designs, and the maintenance of patents in force, using web services as a means of integrating the prosecution systems for automated databases and the automated fees system.
Further work on the automated fees system is planned for 2012 in connection with the introduction of changes to the Regulations on Fees, and ending requests for copies of payment documents from applicants.
The automated fees system is designed to support the processes for preparing data and administering the income from the payment of patent and other fees for performing legally significant acts: checking the receipt of funds by the Office, reserving funds, automatic tracking of the status of payments, automatic recording of funds on transmission of decisions regarding the performance of legally significant acts, and bookkeeping.
In 2011, an automated system for paperless prosecution was introduced for the Chamber of Patent Disputes (PPS). The introduction of the system provides the possibility of paperless prosecution during the consideration of objections and appeals filed with PPS. Information on the decisions of the PPS automated paperless prosecution system is posted on the FIPS website in the Decisions of the Chamber of Patent Disputes section.
Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year
Table 1 shows the trends in the filing of applications and grant of patents for industrial designs in 2010 and 2011.
The total number of applications filed for industrial designs rose compared to 2009 (by five per cent), although it fell slightly among Russian applicants (by 3.43 per cent), and increased by 13.29 per cent among foreign applicants.
The number of industrial design patents granted dropped 2.16 per cent compared to 2010.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to industrial designs
The following pages of the Office’s websites contain:
• information on patent legislation – Normative Documents section:
http://www.rupto.ru/norm_doc/sod/norm_doc/iz_pm_po.html;
• statistical information – Rospatent Annual Reports section:
http://www.rupto.ru/about/sod/otchety.html;
heading Statistical Information on the Use of Intellectual Property: http://www.rupto.ru/rosp_reg/sod/Statistika/Stat_infa.html;
• information on open sources relating to industrial design information systems – Links section:
http://www.rupto.ru/ssilki/ssilki.htm;
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/link_resources/;
• information notices in the Industrial Designs section:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/industrial_designs/.
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of industrial design documents and of secondary sources of industrial design information, i.e., official gazettes
Publishing, including printing, copying techniques and electronic printing
Rospatent publications on industrial designs are presented in Table 2.
The Industrial Designs Official Gazette on CD-ROM electronic carrier with search system, and the corresponding paper Gazette are distributed by subscription. The most recent Gazette is available on the Rospatent site.
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of industrial design information
The forms of notifications on industrial designs published in the Rospatent Industrial Designs Official Gazette are presented in Table 3.
Databases and office automation
Descriptions of the State services provided by Rospatent in the field of industrial design information can be found on the State Services Portal (PGU):
• keeping registers of intellectual property subject matter and publishing information thereon;
• receiving industrial design applications, examining them and granting patents;
• recognizing the invalidity and termination of validity of patents for inventions, industrial designs, patents (certificates) for utility models, and certificates for the right to use appellations of origin;
• extending the term of and restoring patents;
• considering communications from citizens of the Russian Federation;
• registering agreements on the granting of rights in inventions, utility models, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, protectable computer programs, databases and topographies of integrated circuits; commercial concession agreements on the use of intellectual property subject matter that is protected in conformity with the patent legislation of the Russian Federation;
• registering deals on the transfer abroad of single technologies.
All services offer the required forms for applications, and information on how to access services. It is possible to file applications for the grant of a Russian Federation (RF) patent for an invention, utility model or industrial design, as well as for State registration of a trademark or appellation of origin, and for recognition of a trademark as well known in the Russian Federation through the State Services Portal.
Web services for interagency cooperation with the Federal Executive Authorities using the Interagency E-Cooperation System (SMEV) have been developed and integrated into SMEV. Automated user workstations have been developed for the purposes of cooperation.
In 2012, there are plans to migrate from the automated Messages system, which monitors the execution of management instructions and consideration of communications from the public, to SEDKP FIPS, an electronic document flow system.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online industrial design gazettes and to other sources of industrial design information, including download of bulk industrial design data
The web page addresses of the Office’s websites providing information relating to Office publications:
• the Administrative Regulations for performance by the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks of State functions relating to the keeping of registers of registered intellectual property subject matter, publication of information on registered intellectual property subject matter, applications filed and patents and certificates granted therefore, on the validity, termination and renewal of validity of legal protection in relation to intellectual property subject matter, the transfer of rights in protectable subject matter, and the official registration of intellectual property subject matter: http://www.rupto.ru/norm_doc/sod/prikaz/minobrnauka/346_07/Po_vedeniyu_reestrov_zaregistrirovannih_obektov.htm#1;
• Regulations on official publications of the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks, in the Patent Information Products section:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/publishing_activities/publication_act;
• Rospatent Annual Reports:
http://www.rupto.ru/about/sod/otchety.html;
• Prospectus of publications and databases in the Patent Information Products section:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/publishing_activities/ http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/electron_bulletins/inventions_utility_models/.
The addresses of web pages on the Office’s site providing access to online publications:
• Industrial Designs in the Electronic Gazettes section: http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/electron_bulletins/industrial_designs/;
• in the Information Resources section, International Classification for Industrial Designs subsection:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/international_classification/Industrial_samples/;
and Open Registers of Russian Patent Documents subsection:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/portal/Registers/.
From the above page, a user may refer to the following resources by means of the appropriate link:
Register of Industrial Designs of the Russian Federation;
Register of Applications for the Grant of a Russian Federation Industrial Design Patent.
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied
Classification and reclassification activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification (please indicate whether industrial designs are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)
At Rospatent, the International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification) (ICID) is used to classify industrial designs. Since January 1, 2009, indexes from the ninth edition of ICID have been indicated on patent documents. The same edition was used in 2011 for the publication of documents.
Bibliographic data and processing
Examiners’ searches are carried out in the automated system RF Industrial Designs, which includes the volume of applications from 1991 and is updated weekly.
Examiners of applications for industrial designs have been given the possibility to receive the results of information searches of trademarks that use similar verbal or figurative elements according to the automated system for verbal searches, RF Trademarks, and formalized linguistic descriptions of inventions, SILOIZ, containing verbal and figurative elements of industrial designs that have been the subject of applications.
In 2011, 1,041 searches of verbal elements and 2,170 searches of figurative elements of industrial designs were carried out.
IV. Search file establishment and upkeep
File building
The industrial designs collection consists of two arrays of documents:
- national and foreign specialist or general gazettes with sections on industrial designs on various types of carriers (Industrial Designs of Russia Electronic Gazette on CD-ROM, Industrial Designs of Russia Set from 1993 to 2010 on DVD), arranged according to ICID index or Gazette issue number;
- a specialized collection of a broad range of industrial design publications, consisting of materials containing publications from other countries’ national gazettes with a Russian translation of the name of the industrial design and other literature. This collection is arranged according to ICID indexes with collections of varying depths for each country.
Updating
The paper collection is updated by incorporating current documentation on Russian Federation industrial designs and documentation received from Rospatent’s foreign partners as part of international exchange, as well as the acquisition of literature by subscription from major foreign publishers.
V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs
In-house systems (online/offline)
The in-house system in use since 1991 is the Russian Federation Industrial Designs automated system, which is used to conduct searches during the examination of applications for industrial designs, and draft outgoing correspondence, and is a source of electronic data for the publication of information in official publications.
It is planned to migrate in 2012 to a new version of the system offering paperless management of prosecutions for industrial designs, the electronic provision of State services (integrated into the State Services Portal), and integration into the Electronic State Register of Patents (EGR). The system contains data arrays of applications and patents, including image files with illustrations of industrial designs and the ICID automated subsystem, which has been using the ninth edition of ICID since 2009.
The Agreements automated system is designed to support the prosecution of agreements on transferring rights in intellectual property subject matter, providing for the entire cycle of work: registration, categorizing incoming correspondence, storing the current status of applications, revisers’ corrections, preparing and dispatching outgoing correspondence, bookkeeping, and integration with other systems.
It is planned to migrate to the new version of the Agreements automated system, offering paperless prosecution and providing State services electronically (integrated into the State Services Portal), in 2012.
External databases
In 2011, the information resources of FIPS examiners for conducting searches on applications for industrial designs remained as before: examiners use databases of industrial designs that are freely available on the Internet from the countries listed below:
1. Countries and organizations included in the minimum compulsory search field:
Russian Federation
WIPO (Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs)
United States of America
Japan
United Kingdom
Germany
Spain
France
2. Additional information resources from other countries and organizations: European Union (Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market), Argentina, Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Hong Kong (China), Hungary, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Mexico, Republic of Moldova, New Zealand, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Portugal, the Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey and Ukraine.
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
Industrial design applications are registered in the TM-ADMIN system and procedures to export data to the system for the prosecution of applications for inventions, utility models and industrial designs – FIPS automated database – have been developed and introduced.
The FIPS automated database is designed to monitor the prosecution of applications for inventions, utility models and industrial designs, record the payment of patent fees, draw up plans and reports on the activities of examination divisions, prepare data for publication, and receive reports on Rospatent activities that are included in the Rospatent and WIPO Annual Reports.
The system guarantees the entry and registration of application materials and incoming letters, prepares outgoing correspondence, monitors all the processes of the application lifecycle – from the filing of an application to the decision of an examiner (grant, refusal, withdrawal) – and monitors the time taken to consider correspondence and conduct examinations.
The system operates in real time.
The programming language BASIC, Web-Builder, DISI, RE Screen Editor and WINNIX terminal emulator are used as production means in the Universe SU database environment.
The FIPS automated database system is integrated into the RF Industrial Designs automated system, with the aim of using bibliographic information on an application when preparing correspondence for an applicant.
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), data carriers used
Equipment used (industrial design search systems):
HP DL380 server – 8 units.
(OM – 4GB, processors - 2, external memory – 200 GB)
HP DL580 server – 4 units.
(OM – 16GB, processors - 4, external memory - 600 GB)
HP P4, Fujitsu-Siemens workstations - 120 units.
Software:
Solaris, Windows 2000 Server, Windows XP,
Windows 2003 Server operating systems.
Carriers used:
SDLT and Ultrium magnetic tapes.
VI. Administration of industrial design information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering designs, assisting clients with search procedures, obtaining official publications and registry extracts)
Planning, administration, automation, security
The Central Patent Collection (TSPF) provides national and foreign patent documents on all forms of intellectual property subject matter, including industrial designs, as full-text descriptions of invention applications and patents, and bibliographic, abstract, reference, search and other information.
The All-Russian Patent Technology Library of the Federal Institute for Industrial Property (FIPS VPTB) provides open, unlimited access to TSPF and serves all categories of users, including examiners, from Russia and from neighboring and other foreign countries.
The Library premises are equipped with an alarm system and an automatic fire-fighting system.
Collection management, preservation
The industrial designs collection consists of two arrays of documents:
- national and foreign specialist and general Gazettes with sections on industrial designs on different carriers, arranged according to ICID index or Gazette issue number;
- a specialized collection of a broad range of industrial design publications, consisting of materials containing publications from national gazettes with a Russian translation of the name of the industrial design and other literature. This collection is arranged according to ICID indexes with collections of varying depths for each country.
The collection is kept up to date by including current documentation on RF industrial designs and documentation from Rospatent’s foreign partners received under international exchange, as well as by acquiring literature through subscription for major foreign publishers.
The special collection on industrial designs includes:
- full descriptions of the industrial designs of other countries;
- periodicals on industrial design and style;
- advertizing brochures and catalogs;
- thematic collections containing publications from the national Gazettes of a range of foreign countries;
- methodology and reference literature.
The collection contains, in total, 2.3 million publications, including:
- full descriptions of the industrial designs of other countries – approximately 120,000;
- national and foreign journals on design and new production methods – over 16,800 copies;
- thematic collections of national Gazettes from a range of other countries – 2.24 million publications;
- a special collection of advertising brochures and catalogs associated with exhibitions, and adverts for new goods and products – 47,500 copies of publications.
A TSPF collection contains official publications on industrial designs produced by different countries for various retrospective periods.
A room has been specially equipped at FIPS VPTB for all categories of users working with industrial design information.
In 2011:
- over 19,600 paper copies, and approximately 600 electronic copies of Gazettes were issued;
- 19,300 items from thematic subcollections were issued;
- approximately 7,100 copies of design journals were issued;
- over 107,000 copies of advertising brochures and catalogs were issued.
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)
In 2011, users were presented with the Industrial Designs Official Gazette on CD/DVD on subscription, with a frequency of 12 issues per year. Alongside the Official Gazette on disks, the paper Gazette was published (to order).
For new subscribers, and also for the purposes of keeping patent collections up to date, the series of the Industrial Designs Official Gazette published in previous years (2008-2010) were offered on CD/DVD.
In addition, users were offered sets of information on industrial designs for 2005 to 2010 on one DVD, as well as a retrospective set of an array of information on industrial designs for 1993 to 2004 on one DVD.
All CDs and DVDs are distributed together with MIMOSA software, which provides searching of bibliographic data, ICID indexes, and a list of essential features and also combinations thereof.
Users are also offered the publication International Classification for Industrial Designs (ICID) (ninth edition) on CD and paper.
An analog of the Industrial Designs Official Gazette was published on the FIPS Internet site, and the keeping of the registers of Russian industrial designs with an indication of legal status continued. Users are also provided with free access to information on applications for the grant of Russian Federation patents for industrial designs received after January 1, 2007.
In 2011 the Rospatent website provided online access to:
registers of Russian industrial designs;
registers containing information on the prosecution of applications for the grant of industrial design patents filed from 2007 to 2011;
the Rospatent Industrial Designs Official Gazette for the past month.
Registers of Russian industrial designs contain the following databases:
an industrial designs database (contains information on 40,800 patents from 1993 to 2011, updated monthly);
a database of applications for industrial designs (contains information on the prosecution of 21,000 applications filed between 2007 and 2011, updated monthly).
The FIPS website provides users with access to:
the information-search system for industrial designs;
registers of Russian industrial designs;
registers containing information on the prosecution of applications filed for the grant of industrial design patents from 2007 to 2011;
the Rospatent Industrial Designs Official Gazette published in the last month.
Users of the Information-Search System are given access to:
an industrial designs database (contains information on 40,800 patents from 1993 to 2011, updated monthly);
the ICID database.
Databases are updated as follows:
- the industrial designs database – monthly;
- the database of applications for industrial designs filed from 2007 to 2011 inclusive – daily.
Users’ work with the information-search system
Examiners have the possibility to work with all databases.
Access to the industrial design database is provided to third party users on a contractual basis.
Free access to the industrial design database is granted to:
- 84 organizations of the Federal Service of Court Bailiffs;
- 169 organizations of the Ministry of Internal Affairs;
- 10 organizations of the Federal Anti-Monopoly Service.
All third party users are granted free access to:
- a database containing documents published in the most recent Industrial Designs Gazette;
- the ICID database.
All patent document databases contain information on legal status that is updated monthly. Automated database subsystems for determining legal status use data from official publications containing information on newly registered protection titles or amendments. Following publication of each Gazette, data on legal status are posted on the Rospatent website in the Information Resources section. The status of industrial design patents may be “valid”, “may terminate validity”, “validity terminated, but may be restored”, and “validity terminated.
Information on the legal status of industrial designs is published in the Industrial Designs Official Gazette (on CD/DVD), in the paper Gazette, and posted in the following areas of the Rospatent website:
- information on the grant of RF patents for industrial designs;
- information on amendments to the entries of the State Register of Russian Federation Industrial Designs (Notifications section of the Gazette).
On the Rospatent and FIPS websites, open access is provided to the database of applications for industrial designs filed from 2007 to 2011, which contains information on the prosecution of 21,000 applications and is updated daily.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and registration procedures related to industrial designs; opposition and appeal procedures related to industrial designs; etc.
The web page addresses of Office sites providing information relating to filing applications are:
• Administrative regulations for the performance by the Federal Service for Intellectual Property, Patents and Trademarks of State functions relating to the organization of the receipt of applications for industrial designs, the consideration and examination thereof, and the grant in accordance with established procedure of Russian Federation industrial design patents,
http://www.rupto.ru/norm_doc/sod/prikaz/minobrnauka/325/Pritm_zajavok_na_promobr.html#1;
• heading Model Applications and Requests in the Industrial Designs section,
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/industrial_designs/obr_zh;
• Fees section,
http://www.rupto.ru/poshl/poshl.htm;
Acts relating to industrial design patents
http://www.rupto.ru/norm_doc/sod/post_prav/pril_pol_poshl_941.html#1.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office, as well as information on how to access and utilize them
The web page addresses of the Office site providing descriptions of information products and services available from the Office:
• Information on subscribing to patent information products – in the Patent Information Products section: Catalog of Publications and Databases, http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/publishing_activities/ ;
How to Access Publications and Databases subsection, http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/publishing_activities/porayad_pr/;
• Carrying out searches – in the Information Resources section: Services, http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/article_6/;
and Information-Search System,
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/inform_retrieval_system/;
Open Registers, http://www1.fips.ru/wps/portal/Registers/ subsections;
Industrial Designs in the Electronic Gazettes section, http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/electron_bulletins/industrial_designs/;
• Patent databases – Databases subsection of the Information-Search System section,
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/inform_retrieval_system/article_2/;
• Information on accessing and using resources – in the Information-Search System section: Support,
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/inform_retrieval_system/article_4/;
and Instructions,
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/inform_resources/inform_retrieval_system/article_1a/ subsection.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information
International or regional cooperation in the exchange of industrial design information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes
National and foreign patent gazettes, and gazettes from International Organizations, both as special editions and ordinary industrial property gazettes with sections dedicated to industrial designs, are added to the collection through international exchange or the downloading of data from office websites.
In 2011, approximately 200 complimentary optical disks of national industrial designs were provided to various RF higher education institutions.
Exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., data contained on CD-ROM or magnetic tape
In 2011, under the framework of international exchange, 53 annual sets of the Rospatent Industrial Designs Official Gazette were supplied on optical disks to 47 countries and three organizations.
In 2011, 2,594 copies of industrial design Gazettes were received from 49 countries and two international organizations: 100 copies on paper carrier (16 stand alone Gazettes and 84 sections); 171 copies on optical disks, and 1,274 copies downloaded from the Internet of special Gazettes published separately; and 381 copies on optical disks, and 668 copies downloaded from the Internet of general Gazettes with sections on industrial designs.
VIII. Matters concerning education and training, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)
Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)
Training and continuing development for FIPS employees are organized under the Common Training System (ESO), according to the principle of continuous application of internal and external training methods from the moment of hiring.
With the aim of ensuring one common approach to examination, eight sessions on contemporary questions of law enforcement practice were held for the heads of the structural subdivisions, staff examiners, scientific staff and other leading specialists at FIPS.
In connection with the migration to the new interagency cooperation system for providing State services, 14 training seminars were held, which were attended by approximately 120 persons: Rospatent managers and managerial staff, the heads of staff and leading specialists of the structural subdivisions of FIPS, and the staff responsible for implementing electronic interagency cooperation in the provision of State services.
Computer technology is also employed for remote training, including under the WIPO Academy programs and training using the integrated computer training system (OKS OLIMP) that is designed for independent study and self correction of staff examiners’ knowledge through testing.
As part of the exchange of experience with patent offices in other countries, four training seminars on familiarity with the law enforcement practices of other patent offices (the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), EPO and EAPO) were held at Rospatent for staff examiners and administrative and managerial staff from FIPS. The seminars were attended by 170 specialists.
In 2011, the problems of protecting industrial designs were discussed at conferences and seminars that took place in different regions of the Russian Federation, as well as at international exhibitions. The competition program of the 14th Moscow International Exhibition of Inventions and Innovation Technologies, Archimedes, thus included the presentation of nominations for “Best Industrial Design at the Archimedes Exhibition.”
Information on the key major events that took place in Moscow in 2011 is found below.
April 6. A scientific and practical conference and roundtable on contemporary questions of protection and the examination of applications for intellectual property subject matter was held in Sokol’niki as part of the 14th Moscow International Exhibition of Inventions and Innovation Technologies.
Rospatent and FIPS were the event organizers. Presentations were given by 16 leading specialists from Rospatent and FIPS, and 155 persons participated in the work of the conference.
October 26 and 27. The 15th traditional scientific and practical conference of Rospatent: the National Innovation System and the Significance of Legal Protection of Intellectual Property for its Development.
The conference involved two plenary sessions and five working sections, and 40 reports were presented. In total, 277 persons took part in the conference, including 13 from foreign countries. The number of Russian regions represented was 33.
Training courses for national and foreign participants
The modern possibilities offered by automated information technologies, accessible to all categories of users, place new tasks before information centers throughout the world – not simply to provide a user with primary initial information, but also to carry out particularly comprehensive processing of this information beforehand and, consequently, to provide users with a more “intelligent” service.
This idea was discussed, not for the first time, at the annual PATLIB international conference, and has already been implemented in practice in the majority of sufficiently large information centers that possess patent collections.
Since 2008, representatives of FIPS VPTB have participated in the work of PATLIB, and have analyzed their capabilities to provide “intelligent services” to different categories of users, taking into account the experience of foreign colleagues.
Assistance to developing countries (sending consultants and experts, receiving trainees from developing countries, etc.)
Rospatent has no special program to help developing countries. Assistance is provided in response to individual requests from the Offices of developing countries.
IX.Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:
Publications concerning different industrial design prosecution procedures and information sources available to users, e.g., books, brochures, internet publications, etc.
Internet publications from the All-Russian Patent Technology Library Division are available on the FIPS website in the State Patent Collection and VPTB Information Products sections at:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/fonds/.
In the Rospatent and Regions section of the Rospatent website the following Internet publications are published:
• Method-related materials and reviews on protection and defense of the results of intellectual activity to help small and medium-sized enterprises:
http://www1.fips.ru/wps/wcm/connect/content_ru/ru/regions/mp;
• Recommendations on the list of essential methodology, legal and patent literature and documentation for the provision of documents for the patent subdivisions and services of the State science and education sector and organizations forming the national nanotechnology network:
http://www.rupto.ru/rosp_reg/sod/Pat_podrazd_i_sluzhbam/links/Rekomendacii/Rekomendacii.html.
In order to provide procedural support on the examination of industrial designs, the following advice is available on the FIPS website:
• Recommendations regarding the examination of applications for industrial designs, approved by Rospatent Decree No. 48 of March 31, 2009: http://www.fips.ru/sitedocs/rec_po.pdf.
In the Information Resources section, information is provided on registrations, with an indication of legal status or stage of prosecution of applications:
Open Registers: http://www1.fips.ru/wps/portal/Registers/.