Annual Technical Report on Patent Information Activities in 2025 submitted by The Estonian Patent Office

Please provide links to your website where the requested information can be found in English, French, or Spanish. Alternately, you may provide text responses instead of URLs if desired. If the information is not available on your website in an ATR language, then please provide text.

URLs in responses should meet the following requirements:

Link to pages with information in English, Spanish, or French
The URL will remain stable over time (at least three years, preferably more)
Goes to the specific information requested, not to a general homepage
If the URL goes to a long PDF document such as an annual report, please indicate which sections or pages contain relevant information.
Provide additional instructions for using the URL if needed. For instance, if the page requires the user to login first, or if the requested information requires selecting certain options or filters on the page that can not be included in the URL.

I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PATENT INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information on the following topics is desired:

Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.

Inventions | Patendiameti aastaraamat

Statistics | Patendiamet

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information on the following topics is desired:

Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) – URLs
Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
Classification², preclassification³ (if applicable), reclassification⁴ activities; classification system used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)), matters concerning indexing of patent information
Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents
Other activities

Public Awareness Policies | Patendiameti aastaraamat

The Estonian Patent Gazette | Patendiamet

The Estonian Utility Model Gazette | Patendiamet

III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Information on the following topics is desired:

Main types of publications of the Office (patent applications, full text, first pages, abstracts, bibliographic data, granted patents, etc.), 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 and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases
Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) 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

Inventions databases | Patendiamet

The Estonian Patent Gazette | Patendiamet

The Estonian Utility Model Gazette | Patendiamet

IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information on the following topics is desired:

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

Inventions databases | Patendiamet

Inventions | Patendiameti aastaraamat

V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION

Information on the following topics is desired:

Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries
Publications related to different business procedures and patent information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.
Office’s initiatives on providing foreign patent information in the local language(s) (e.g., machine translation tools, translation of abstracts)
Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
Education and training: training courses, e learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
Other activities

Inventions | Patendiameti aastaraamat

Information Events | Patendiameti aastaraamat

VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION

Information on the following topics is desired:

International exchange and sharing of patent information in machine-readable form, e.g., priority documents, bibliographic data, abstracts, search reports, full text information
Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information
Assistance to developing countries
Other activities

Inventions databases | Patendiamet

International cooperation | Patendiameti aastaraamat

VII. ACTIVITIES RELATING TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WIPO STANDARDS CONCERNING PATENT INFORMATION

Note: For each Standard listed below, please enter one of the following values:

"Fully implemented"
“Partially implemented”
"On implementation phase"
"Planning to implement"
“On assessment phase”
"No plan to implement"

Implementation Status Definitions

"Fully implemented"

The WIPO Standard has been implemented in a manner compliant or compatible with the Standard.

"Partially implemented"

The WIPO Standard has been implemented in part. The Office practice aligns with some, but not all, requirements of the Standard.

"On implementation phase"

The decision to implement the WIPO Standard has been made and it is currently being deployed, configured, or integrated into systems and workflows.

"Planning to implement"

The decision to implement the WIPO Standard has been made; planning activities (resource allocation, timeline development, technical design) are underway before actual implementation begins.

"On assessment phase"

The WIPO Standard is under active evaluation to determine its feasibility, technical requirements, costs, benefits, and alignment with organizational needs before making an implementation decision.

"No plan to implement"

The WIPO Standard has been reviewed and there is currently no intention or plan to implement it.

WIPO Standard ST.1: Recommendation concerning the minimum data elements required to uniquely identify a patent document

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.2: Standard manner for designating calendar dates by using the Gregorian calendar

Fully implemented

DD.MM.CCYY format is used

WIPO Standard ST.3: Recommended standard on two-letter codes for the representation of states, other entities and intergovernmental organizations

Fully implemented

The two-letter code “EE” is used. The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation.

WIPO Standard ST.6: Recommendation for the numbering of published patent documents

No plan to implement

Patent and utility model registration number is the 5-digit number (e.g., 00123). Overlap of numbers is excluded.

The number assigned to the registered document differs from the number of the original application.

The number of the first level of patent publication (18 month publication of an application) includes the number of year (e.g. 202500012).

WIPO Standard ST.8: Standard recording of international patent classification (IPC) symbols on machine-readable records

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.9: Recommendation concerning bibliographic data on and relating to patents and SPCs

Fully implemented

INID codes along with their definitions are listed in the Estonian Patent Gazette and the Estonian Utility Model Gazette. The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation.

WIPO Standard ST.10: Published patent documents

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.10/A: Format (margins, size) of patent documents

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.10/B: Layout of bibliographic data components

Fully implemented

The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation

WIPO Standard ST.10/C: Presentation of bibliographic data components

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.10/D: Guidelines on physical characteristics of patent documents particularly relevant to reproducibility and legibility of such documents

No plan to implement

The electronic format of documents is used

WIPO Standard ST.11: Recommendation on the minimum of indexes to be inserted in patent gazettes or published in association with patent gazettes

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.12: Guidelines for the preparation of abstracts of patent documents

Partially implemented

WIPO Standard ST.12/A: General guidelines for the preparation of abstracts of patent documents

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.12/B: Guidelines for the preparation of categorized patent abstract

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.12/C: Guidelines for the physical characteristics of separately published abstracts in selective dissemination of information (SDI) presented in the form of card files

Partially implemented

WIPO Standard ST.13: Recommendation for the numbering of applications for industrial property rights (IPRs)

No plan to implement

The examples of present formats for applications are following:

Patents – P202500012

Utility Model – U202500012

SCP - C20250012

WIPO Standard ST.14: Recommendation for the inclusion of references cited in patent documents

Fully implemented

The principles of the recommendation are taken into account in the preparation of the search reports

WIPO Standard ST.15: Guidelines for the wording of titles of inventions in patent documents

Fully implemented

The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation

WIPO Standard ST.16: Recommended standard code for the identification of different kinds of patent documents

Partially implemented

Code “A” - public patent application (first publication level); published in accordance with the Patents Act (§ 34).

Code “B” - granted patent (second publication level); published in accordance with the Patents Act (§ 34).

Codes “B2”; “B3”; etc. (the amended versions of patent from the second publication); published in accordance with the Patents Act (§ 34).

Code “U” - registered utility model (first application level); published in accordance with the Utility Models Act (§ 31).

Codes “U2”; “U3”; etc. (the amended versions of utility model from the first publication); published in accordance with the Utility Models Act (§ 31).

WIPO Standard ST.17: Recommendation for the coding of headings of announcements made in official gazettes

Fully implemented

The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation

WIPO Standard ST.18: Recommendation concerning patent gazettes and other patent announcement journals

Fully implemented

The patent applications, the issued Estonian and European patents, amendments to the register, decisions on the supplementary protection for medicinal products and plant protection products are published in the Estonian Patent Gazette. Since December 2014 it is published 12 times a year. The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation.

WIPO Standard ST.19: Recommendation for the publication of indexes issued yearly/half-yearly/quarterly by industrial property offices

Fully implemented

WIPO Standard ST.20: Recommendations for the preparation of name indexes to patent documents

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.21: Recommendation concerning the reduction of volume of priority documents as filed with industrial property offices

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.22: Recommendation for the authoring of patent applications for the purpose of facilitating optical character recognition (OCR)

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.25: Standard for the presentation of nucleotide and amino acid sequence listings in patent applications

No plan to implement

Requirements are based on ST.26

WIPO Standard ST.26: Recommended standard for the presentation of nucleotide and amino acid sequence listings using XML (extensible markup language)

Fully implemented

The sequence listing shall be formatted and submitted as a separate document in accordance with WIPO standard ST. 26.

The standard is referenced in the relevant regulation

WIPO Standard ST.27: Recommendation for the exchange of patent legal status data

Planning to implement

With the launch of the new Back Office system, preparing the XML file of legal data is underway, but it is not yet being fully used

WIPO Standard ST.31: Recommended standard coded character sets for the exchange of machine-readable records of patent documents

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.32: Recommendation for the markup of patent documents using SGML (standard generalized markup language)

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.33: Recommended standard format for data exchange of facsimile information of patent documents

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.34: Recommendation concerning the recording of application numbers in electronic form for the exchange of bibliographic data

Fully implemented

The examples of present formats for applications are following:

Patents – P202500012

Utility Model – U202500012

SCP - C20250012

WIPO Standard ST.35: Recommended standard format for data exchange of mixed-mode published patent document information on reel-to-reel and IBM 3480/90 cartridge tapes

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.36: Recommendation for the processing of patent information using XML (extensible markup language)

Fully implemented

Sending data to the Espacenet and PatentScope databases.

Patent bibliographic data in WIPO ST.36

Document facsimile (image data) in bookmarked PDF

Citation data in WIPO ST.36

Full-text data in WIPO ST.36

WIPO Standard ST.37: Recommendation for an authority file of published patent documents

Fully implemented

The authority file of the Estonian Patent Office has been published on the WIPO portal in accordance with the standard

WIPO Standard ST.40: Recommendation concerning making facsimile images of patent documents available on CD-ROM

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.50: Guidelines for issuing corrections, alterations and supplements relating to patent information

No plan to implement

Online Internet publication: Publication of the new bibliographic data in the public Database of the Estonian Patent Applications and Patents, Database of the European Patents Validated in Estonia and Database of Utility Models use non WIPO Standard ST.50 issuing procedures.

The information is also reflected in the Estonian Patent Gazette or in the Estonian Utility Model Gazette.

WIPO Standard ST.90: Recommendation for processing and communicating intellectual property data using web APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)

Partially implemented

WIPO Standard ST.91: Recommendations on digital three-dimensional (3D) models and 3D images

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.92: Recommendations on the data package format for the electronic exchange of priority documents

On assessment phase

The new regulation is in the development stage

WIPO Standard ST.96: Recommendation for the processing of intellectual property information using XML (extensible markup language)

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.97: Recommendation for processing of intellectual property data using JSON

No plan to implement

VIII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS

Please include any other relevant information here.

Annual Report 2025 | Patendiameti aastaraamat

Patent Office | Patendiamet

Statistics | Patendiamet

The Estonian Patent Gazette | Patendiamet

The Estonian Utility Model Gazette | Patendiamet

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.

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.

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.

<script>
jQuery(document).ready(function() {
    jQuery(".wiki-content a").attr("target", "_blank");
});
</script>