Annual Technical Report on Industrial Design Information Activities in 2015 submitted by Slovakia
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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. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of industrial design information activities and expected time frames for their realization
In 2013 strategy of the Office´s activities by 2016 was adopted. It contains inter alia activities in the patent information area:
- To prepare the draft of the conception of the Office´s information services development by 2016 in accordance with the Strategic Plan of the Office;
- To identify the WIPO standards related to public services and data providing which are not or are partially implemented at the Office and to prepare the proposal for their implementation with the publication of their content in Slovak language for public;
- To prepare the proposal for implementation of new standardised processes and outputs of the Office related to provided services;
- To prepare the proposal for implementation of new and modification of existing public services of the Office;
- To implement a new complex package of public services with relevant information materials and documents.
Evaluation of the period 2013 - 2016 in the area of information services and the report on their status and perspectives is planned for the end of 2016.
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies(plans) mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
Since 2011 the Office has realised the Projects of the Cooperation Fund of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market/European Union Intellectual Property Office (OHIM/ EUIPO) aimed at more effective providing services to national offices experts and clients and harmonization of the practice of national offices in proceedings on applications of trade marks and designs.
In 2015 the tools realised through the mentioned projects were used actively and were available not only to national Office experts but also to public. These are tools in applications DesignView (Registered designs search tool) and Quality (Centralising information on IP Office quality standards).
IPO SR cooperated with OHIM/EUIPO to create an electronic tool to exchange data between the European Commission, OHIM/EUIPO, authorities performing the practical enforcement of IP rights and other parties concerned. The Enforcement Database to support the enforcement of IP rights is the base of the safe system of cooperation between IP right holders, custom authorities and police.
More information is on the web site https://www.tmdn.org/
In 2014 also the Project Common Central Database, implemented in OHIM/EUIPO and used by experts of the Office´s Call Centre to build so-called Knowledge Database, was launched. It means that questions about CTM/EUTM or RCD or related questions are transferred by the Office´s experts to OHIM/EUIPO experts to harmonise answers about CTM/EUTM or RCD.
Since 2012 the Office has been cooperating with industrial property offices of the European Union member states through the European Trade Mark and Design Network within the OHIM/EUIPO Convergence Programme aimed at harmonisation of practice and eliminating differences of national industrial property offices procedures on trade mark and designs and at gradual implementation of the Projects:
CP6 Graphic Representation of a Design
CP7 Harmonisation of Product Indications
With effect from April 15, 2016 the Slovak Republic has been applying the Common Communication on Convergence on Graphic Representation of Designs as a result of collaboration within CP6. It is expected that CP7 programme shall be finalised in 2016.
Within the Operational Programme Information Society the Office in cooperation with the external company works on the Project Electronic Services of the IPO SR to prepare inter alia the new modern web registers of the Office. In 2015 the works continued under the agreed Schedule.
Main areas of industrial design information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year
Plans about trade design 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 systems (eSearch, Designview, Hague Express,etc.).
Projects and activities in before-mentioned item were realised in cooperation with the OHIM/EUIPO
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
95 design applications were filed with the IPO SR in 2015. The most active foreign applicants were from the Czech Republic (5) and France (6).
Slovak applicants filed 84 applications (increase by 2.4 per cent). The share of domestic applications was 88.4 per cent of the total number of filed applications.
The Office received 95 design applications in 2015; it is 5 per cent less than in 2015. 94 designs were registered in 2015; it is decrease by 7.8 per cent than in 2014.
On December 31, 2015 there were 859 valid national designs in the Slovak Republic.
For comparison there is the statistics on design applications and registrations of the years 2011 – 2015.
Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.
Annual Technical Reports on Designs:
http://www.upv.sk/?vyrocne-technicke-spravy
http://www.wipo.int/cws/en/atrs/
Annual Reports of the IPO SR:
http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports
Design-related news
http://www.upv.sk/
Useful links
http://www.upv.sk/?linky
http://www.upv.sk/?dalsie-uzitocne-linky
Intellectual Property Magazine
http://www.upv.sk/?dusevne-vlastnictvo
IPO SR and IPO CZ Publications
http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie
IPO SR E-Zine
http://www.upv.sk/?e-zine-upv-sr
II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs
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:
Designs http://www.upv.sk/?dizajny
What Is a Design ?
http://www.upv.sk/?what-is-a-design
Information for Applicants
http://www.upv.sk/?designs-information-for-applicant
Legislation - Designs
http://www.upv.sk/?legislation-designs
Administrative Fees - Designs
http://www.upv.sk/?administrative-fees-designs
Filing Abroad
http://www.upv.sk/?dizjany-prihlasovanie-do-zahranicia
Design Classifications
http://www.upv.sk/?dizajny-systemy-triedenia
Downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?dizajny-dokumenty-na-prevzatie
Data Extracted from Register
http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/searchForm.do?lang=en®ister=vz
Contacts
http://www.upv.sk/?contacts
Currently the Office does not provide services enabling to file designs via electronic means signed by electronic signature.
Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
The Office conducts the application file only in the paper form.
Classification and reclassification activities; classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification
The current version of the International Classification for Industrial Design (Locarno Classification) is used for classifying of designs, which are classified by Office´s experts.
The WIPO Standard ST.80 is used for design 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.
Other activities
Information Centre
http://www.upv.sk/?information-centre
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 provided (European patent, international application filed under PCT).
The information were provided personally, by phone (+421 48 4300 131), by post and e-mail address infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk.
In 2015 the Information Centre dealt with 7.903 requests for information; 6.128 thereof were provided by phone, 1.528 by e-mail, 245 personally and 2 by post.
Pre-diagnostics of industrial property rights
http://www.upv.sk/?prediagnostika-priemyselnych-prav
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 2015 the Office employees visited 30 companies in Slovakia. The most of them were from the self-governing regions of Bratislava (11), Banská Bystrica (6) and Nitra (4).
Workplace of the IPO SR in Bratislava
Workplace of the Office, which was opened in 2004 offered information relating to filing applications for industrial property rights subjects last year. In the workplace, there is a filing room.
III. SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE
Main types of publications in the field of industrial design information, outline of the content (industrial design applications, design patents, registrations, etc.) and medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)
Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.
Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external documentation and databases
Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) and services available to external users; conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)
Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)
Other sources
IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements
Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office
Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources
Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file
Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)
Other matters
V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION
Office's library (if deals with industrial design information): equipment, collection management, network of libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign libraries
Publications related to different business procedures and industrial design information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.
Cooperation with universities, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
Education and training: training courses, e learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
Other activities
VI.INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION
International exchange of industrial design information in machine-readable form (e.g., Official Gazettes)
Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to industrial design information
Assistance to developing countries
Other activities