SCIT.ATR.PI.2008.SK

Annual Technical Report 2008 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Slovakia (SCIT/ATR/PI/2008/SK)

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

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants with respect to the previous year

PATENTS

There were 242 patent applications filed in 2008 that is decrease by 29.9 % in comparison with the year 2007. The PCT applications form 14.9 % (36) of all applications.

The number of applications filed by domestic applicants (167) has decreased by 30.1 %, and the applications filed by the foreign applicants (75) also decreased by 29.2 %. The largest share in the number of patent application filed by foreign applicants (75) have the the USA (14), Japan (10) and the Czech Republic (17).

In the year 2008, 11 European applications were filed.

566 patents were granted that is decrease by 1.4 % in comparison with the year 2007.

There were 14 application of SPC's filed in 2008. All of them are from foreign applicants, the most number is from the USA - 5, from Germany - 3 applications and from United Kingdom -3 applications. There were 16 SPC's granted.

On December 31, 2008 there were 4,399 valid patents in the Slovak Republic.

EUROPEAN PATENTS

1,726 translations of the European patent specifications were published in the Slovak Republic during the year 2008, that is more than 15.8 % in comparison with the previous year.

UTILITY MODELS

There were 326 utility model applications filed in the Office in 2008. This number has increased by 1.6 % in comparison with the previous year. The number of applications filed by the Slovak applicants decreased by 0.4 % (251 applications). The share of the Slovak applicants in total number of 326 applications is 77 %.

Decrease of 69.3 % occurred in number of registered utility models (102).

On December 31, 2008 there were 1,617 valid utility models in the Slovak Republic.

In comparison with the statistics of the years 2002 - 2008, there are following results in patent, utility model and European patent translations area:

Patentandutilitymodelstatistics

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

PATENTS

Application in the field of Health and Amusement (11.98 %), Transporting, Conveying and Storing (7.85 %), Building (7.44 %), Medical, Dental or Hygienic Preparations (7.02 %), Measuring, Optics and Photography (7.02 %) and Organic Chemistry (6.61 %) have the largest share.

UTILITY MODELS

Almost 29 % registered utility models are from the branch of civil engineering and transport.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to patents

URL to annual technical reports on patents:
http://www.wipo.int/scit/en/atrs/
http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=9&idd2=909

URL to the Annual Reports of the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic:
http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=11&idd2=92

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information

Publishing, printing, copying (main types of publications of the Office in the field of patent information, etc.)

Main types of official publications:

Patent documents (codes of documents according to the WIPO ST.16):

-Published patent applications (A3)
-Patent specifications (B6)
-Supplementary protection certificates (without code)
-Translations of patent claims of European patent application with designation for SK (T1)
-Corrected translations of patent claims of European patent application with designation for SK (T2)
-Translations of European patent specification with designation for SK (T3)
-Corrected translations of European patent specification with designation for SK (T4)
-Translations of modified wording of European patent specification with designation for SK (T5)
-Published utility model applications (U1)
-Registered utility models without change (Y1)
-Registered utility models with change (Y2)
-Corrections of patent documents (A8, A9, B8, B9, U8, U9, Y8, Y9, T8, T9)

Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR"

Patents and utility model information forms part of the Official Gazette - " Vestník ÚPV SR", covering all industrial property rights in one publication. IPO SR started to publish the Official Gazette only in electronic form on CD ROM as from January 2008 (number of Gazette 1/2008). In 2008 the Gazette had a circulation of 200 copies, of which 62 were distributed monthly by subscription. Other copies were sent free of charge to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO, to information and consulting sites INNOINFO, within the frame of industrial property information exchange to foreign offices and as the statutory copies according to the act as well. Electronic form of Official Gazette, available to the public in the Internet free of charge, contains searchable data, which are regularly updated.

The following numbers of documents were published in the Official Gazette in 2008:

181 published patent applications
575 patent specifications
186 published utility model applications
125 registered utility models
12 application for granting SPC's
11 granted SPC's
10 translations of patent claims of European patent application with designation for SK
1726 translations of European patent specification with designation for SK
10 corrected translations of European patent specification with designation for SK

Distribution

The Office distributed Slovak patent specifications to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO to build the territorial fund of the national patent documentation and to the IPO of the Czech Republic within the frame of exchange as well. Slovak patents published on ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROM are being distributed by the Hungarian Patent Office to foreign patent offices within the frame of mutual patent information exchange. The Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR" has been distributed within the frame of mutual exchange to 30 countries including organizations EPO and WIPO last year.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information

The Gazette contains patent announcements including the translations of European patents with designation for SK, supplementary protection certificates announcements and utility model announcements arranged in following main chapters:

PATENTS
-list of published patent applications (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data and abstracts of published patent applications with an image, where available (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-list of granted patents (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of granted patents (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-suspended patent application procedures
-patents lapsed by reason of abandonment
-lapsed (expired) patents
-patents lapsed by reason of failure to pay renewal fee
-refused patent application
-revocations of patents
-partial revocations of patents
-assignment and transfer of the rights to patents and patent applications
-the changes of the rights of disposal to patents and patent applications (lien)
-the changes of the rights of disposal to patents and patent applications (termination of lien)
-the license offers
-license contracts registered in the register
-the termination of force of the license contracts
-compulsory licenses
-patents registered in the register after declassification
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes

UTILITY MODELS
-list of published utility model applications (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of published utility model applications (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-list of registered utility models (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered utility models (arranged according to the
International Patent Classification)
-list of registered utility models with the extended term of validity (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered utility models with the extended term of validity (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-abandoned utility models
-lapsed (expired) utility models
-utility models lapsed by reason of failure to pay renewal fee
-cancelled utility models
-partially cancelled utility models
-assignments of the rights to utility models
-the changes of the rights of disposal to utility models (lien)
-the changes of the rights of disposal to utility models (termination of lien)
-license contracts registered in the register
-compulsory licenses
-the termination of force of the license contracts
-registered utility models in the register after declassification
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes

EUROPEAN PATENTS
-list of translations of patent claims of European patent aplications with designation for SK (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of translations of patent claims of European patent applications with designation for SK (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-list of corrected translations of patent claims of European patent applications with designation for SK (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of corrected translations of patent claims of European patent applications with designation for SK (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-list of translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-list of corrected translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of corrected translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-list of translations of the modified wording of European patent specifications with designation for SK (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of translations of the modified wording of European patent specifications with designation for SK (arranged according to the International Patent Classification)
-suspended procedures of the European patent applications by reason of withdrawal
-conversions of the European patent applications to the national applications
-abandoned European patents
-revocations of European patents
-partial revocations of European patents
-lapsed (expired) European patents
-European patents lapsed by reason of failure to pay the maintenance fees
-Assignment and transfer of the rights to European patents and European patent applications
-the changes of the rights of disposal to European patents and European patent applications (lien)
-the changes of the rights of disposal to European patents and European patent applications (termination of lien)
-the license offers
-license contracts registered in the register
-the termination of force of the license contracts
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes

SUPPLEMENTARY PROTECTION CERTIFICATES
-bibliographic data of published applications for granting the supplementary protection certificates (arranged according to the document numbers)
-bibliographic data of granted supplementary protection certificates (arranged according to the document numbers)
-suspended procedures of applications for granting the supplementary protection certificate
-refused applications for granting the supplementary protection certificate
-published applications for extension of validity term of supplementary protection certificates
-extended terms of validity of supplementary protection certificates
-suspended and refused procedures of applications for extension of validity term of supplementary protection certificates
-change of validity term of supplementary protection certificate as amended by Article 17 (2) of the Regulation (EC) no. 1610/96 of the European Parliament and Article 17 of the Council Regulation (EEC) no. 1768/92
-assignments of rights for applications for granting the supplementary protection certificate
-lapsed supplementary protection certificates
-revocations of supplementary protection certificates
-assignments of rights for the supplementary protection certificate
-changes in data of applicants for granting the supplementary protection certificate
-changes in data of owners of the supplementary protection certificates
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes

Mass storage media used (paper, microforms, optical storage, etc.)

Patent documents are available in paper form in the Office's library and, in addition,patent specifications are available also in electronic form in the Office's web site as well as on ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROM (Patents from the Region of Eastern and Central European States). As an index to this fulltext CD-ROM is ESPACE ACCESS PRECES (complete bibliographic information) is used.

Word processing and office automation

Word processing and office automation is ensured by application over the patent and utility models database.

(New) techniques used for the generation of patent information (printing, recording, photocomposing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), etc.)

MS Office 2003, FineReader 9.0, Adobe Acrobat 8.Professional SK, Agfa FotoLook 3.6, Quark Xpress Passport 7.3, Corel Draw 11, Adobe Design Standard CS4.
SLEX99 – Lexicon of Slovak Language are used for the data processing; the photocomposing and printing is carried out by the Office.

The Desk-Top Publishing technology is used for data and images processing, for the Gazette and first pages of the patent documents.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online publication of patent documents and gazettes, and to other primary and secondary sources of patent information, including patent publication servers and download of bulk patent data

@SKIPO - Electronic Slovak Industrial Property Office Portal
http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=en&idd=99

@SKIPO is an integrated system of e-services that offers access to on-line databases, on-line services and @filling room. The purpose of the portal of the Office is to provide the public with all our e-services from one place and in transparent manner and gives the possibility to communicate electronically with the Office. The effort of the Office is to make available as much information in electronic form, which are placed on internal network now, as possible. All data from databases are provided free of charge.

ON-LINE DATABASES
http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=en&idd=2

IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its homepage. Most frequently used databases are
-"Data extracted from Registers" also called as "Webregisters", give public access to information from national registers of industrial property rights and are daily updated http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=en
-“Patent documents IPO SR” - patent documents SK and CS include in addition bibliographic data also complete patent files and are regularly updated http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=en&idd=12
-“Patent classifications” contains Slovak version of the IPC 7 (fully searchable) and of the IPC 2006 core level (in PDF only), links to other classifications systems for classifying patents and utility models used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=sk?idd=13&idd2=1302
-“Official Gazette” enables looking on an single issue, searching in the selected issue and searching in all issues http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=en&idd=14.

In the part ”Foreign on-line databases” are available links to most frequently used on-line databases http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=sk&idd=19.

ON-LINE ORDERS
http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=en&idd=1&idd2=

IPO SR makes available electronic order forms on Official Gazette, magazine Intellectual Property and E-zine, publications of the IPO SR and IPO CZ, Annual Reports, patent documents and searches (see the part „Products and services“, chapter VI).

III. Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents

Abstracting, reviewing, translating

Abstracts printed on the first pages of patent documents as well as a part of official announcements are revised and in case of need corrected by the Office’s experts before publication of application. Abstracts appear only in case of patent application publications in the Official Gazette. The English translation of abstracts are being sent to the EPIDOS for the ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROM production and publication in the database esp@cenet.

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), and reclassification³ activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC), other classification (please indicate whether or not patent documents are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)

Patent applications were classified, preclassified (i.e. preliminarily classified at the subclass level) and reclassified by Office’s experts according to the core level of the eight version of the International Patent Classification. The WIPO Standards ST.8 and ST.10/C were also used for these purposes. Classification of applications was conducted before the publication of the application, while final specification of the classification symbol can be done during the search of the application. Patent applications were preclassified by allotting subclass symbols to route a patent application to the appropriate examiner or for statistical purposes. Reclassifying of applications according to the current edition of the IPC was carried out after entry of a new edition of the IPC core level into force.

An administrative system for patent applications was fully upgraded with new features of the reformed IPC.

The IPC 2006 core level was used in the Office for classification the Slovak patent documents by the end of the 2008.

Hybrid system indexing

By reason of application of the reformed IPC core level for indexing of technical information contained in patent documents the hybrid systems of the IPC are not used.

Bibliographic data and full-text processing

The WIPO Standard ST. 9 is used for patent and utility model 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.

Digitalisation

In 2008, the Office continued in regular monthly digitalisation of new entries of national patent documentation.

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

File building

The patent documentation search file used by the patent examiners and the technical public contains patent documents from 26 countries, the EPO, the WIPO and the OAPI, patent gazettes from 33 countries, including the EPO and the WIPO and the non-patent literature (47 titles of technical periodicals and 9049 titles of special literature).

Updating

Updating of patent documentation search file is performed regularly according to current technical possibilities.

Storage, including mass storage media

The basis of the patent fund forms the collection stored on the paper medium (cca 10 millions documents). However the majority of the patent documentation is currently received on electronic carriers. In 2008 the regular annual accession of optical discs reached 837 pieces of optical discs with full texts and bibliographic information concerning the patent documents.

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file

IPO SR is maintaining the patent documentation collection stored in paper form, which forms, as a part of PCT minimum documentation, the basis of search files within the range:
-from 1950 to 1992: the documentation DD (from 1958), DE (from 1951), CH (from 1944), FR (from 1945), GB (from 1967), PL (from 1963), SU (from 1941), US (from 1960) and the documentation EPO (from 1978) a WIPO (from 1978)
-from 1919 to the present: national documentation SK and formal CS
-from 1993 to the present: national documentation CZ

Since 1993 the Office has been receiving patent documents stored on optical discs from following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, France, Georgia, Italy, Japan, Canada, China, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, United States of America, United Kingdom and from international organisations EPO, OAPI and WIPO.

In 2008, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR received patent and utility model gazettes, as a part of the available search files, from the following states and organizations: AT, AU, BA, BG, BR, CH, CZ, DE, EE, EG, ES, FI, FR, GB, HR, HU, IT, KG, LT, LV, MD, MK, NO, PL, PT, RO, RU, SI, SM, UA, US, EPO a WIPO.

V. Activities in the field of computerized and other mechanized search systems

In-house systems (online/offline)

The Office is keeping and creating national search database on granted patents, published patent applications and registered utility models, which serves for searches and purposes of proceedings on granting patents and registering utility models. Nowadays, selected data are also available through Internet.

It is possible to carry out searches according to bibliographic data in all the databases used for granted patents, published patent applications and registered utility models.

Following search CD-ROM are used through the local CD-ROM network by the
Ultranet 2000 system:
IPO SR Official Gazette
ESPACE - ACCESS EP - A
ESPACE - ACCESS EP - B
ESPACE – ACCESS – EPC (EUROPE)
ESPACE – ACCESS - PRECES
ESPACE – ACCESS - RUSSIA
ESPACE – BULLETIN
PCT Gazette
PCT Impact
PAJ
ESPACE - LEGAL
IPC CLASS version 7 (MPT 7)
IPC CLASS version 2006 (MPT 8)
Revision Concordance list between Core Level MPT 8 and Advanced Level MPT 8
List of Blue sheets Espace CD ROM
ECLA Classification in PDF format
legal and economic information, encyclopedia and statistics
translating dictionaries

External databases

Searches carried out in the STN on-line service, access to EPOQUE, DERWENT WORLD PATENTS INDEX® (DWPI) available within the EPOQUE, CAS and the like databases.

Using the esp@cenet Internet database and other free available databases of the national offices (e.g. Czech patent and utility models database, USPTO database, IPOUK database) and WIPO.

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

The Office automation management system contains patents, European patents with designation for SK, utility models, supplementary protection certificates and PCT registry (data since 1993 – patents, data since 2003 -European patents with designation for SK, data since 1992 – utility models, data since 2002 - supplementary protection certificates and data since 1995 – PCT applications filed with IPO SR as a receiving office) using “INVENTIO” software.

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used

Equipment used:
LAN is built on base of the Cisco technology, Fast ETHERNET 1000/100/10 Mbit/s, WINDOWS 2003 Server; MS SQL Server 2005; workstations PC Pentium, Windows 2000, Windows XP, thin client WYSE VX0.

Linux Red Hat Enterprise 4.0,
Informix Dynamic Server 10,
Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0,
Ultranet – Ultra Console 2000

SAN HP MSA 1500 CS,
HP Storage Works MSL 5026 series library, MSL 2024,
HP open view Storage Data Protector version A.06.00

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)

Planning, administration, automation, security, buildings

In 2008, the Office's reading room has been visited by 1 396 users and 1 327 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 7 309 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 25 100 copies of patent 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 2008 there were performed 208 patent searches, 2 431 trademark searches and 36 design searches based on 1 043 written and 81 personally requests.

The Office's reading room including the search workstation opens daily from 8:00 to 15:00 except the Wednesday (9:00-16:00).

All online services and other basic information are available via Internet address of IPO SR: www.upv.sk.

Collecting, acquisitions, preparation

In the last year were processed 5 355 patent documents in paper form and 837 optical discs containing full texts and bibliographic information relating to patent documents as well to made them available for search purposes. The entire acquisition of patent documents amounted to
1 779 210 documents, out of which 1 773 855 entries represented documents in electrical form. Other new entries, for instance Official Gazettes of the foreign offices (31) and miscellaneous associated literature, were processed on the monthly basis.

The patent literature (patent documentation and official gazettes) were acquired within the frame of mutual exchange and the non-patent literature mostly by purchase and by subscription or as a gift.

Collection management, preservation

A list of the complete patent documentation was regularly updated on the Office’s web site.

Non-patent literature was processed, stored and made available according to librarian rules via in-house database system “Knižnica” to the staff.

Interlibrary lending, resource sharing, networks of patent libraries in the country

Patent Information Centres and Contact and Information Points

Since 2003 the Office has established 10 contact and information points, while four of them are the Patent Information Centres. They are located in state, regional and district libraries as well as in the Slovak National Library in Martin and Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava. A list of centres and points is available on the Office’s web site http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=10&idd2=

The main goal of patent information centres is to provide complex information services in the field of patent, trademark 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 as a contact and information point.

The main goal of contact and information points of the Office is to inform the public about where can apply for protection of the results of creative activity, and particularly to inform the general public about the existence of the national institution, which protects immaterial goods, industrial property.

The Office supported the activity of centres and contact and information points by regular sending Slovak patent specifications in paper also on optical discs (fulltext ESPACE-PRECES CD-ROM, bibliographic data thereof on ESPACE ACCESS PRECES) as well as announcements concerning industrial property rights in the Official Gazette form, 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 databases via Internet etc.

The co-operation with patent information centres and contact and information points within the PATLIB network continued also in 2008. Experts from the IPO SR had consultations with representatives of centres and under the co-operation agreement new information products were provided regularly. Employees of the centres took part in PATLIB Conference 2008 in Warsaw, in conference organised in the IPO SR on the occasion of World IP Day as well as in seminar aimed on providing electronic services by the IPO SR..

Information and consulting sites for innovations

The mission of the thirteen “innoinfo” centres operating in the regions of Slovakia is to orientate especially the small and medium sized entrepreneurs in the field of innovations and industrial property. „ Innoinfo“ centres are established in business incubators, regional consultancy and information centres, regional chambers of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at the Universities of technical orientation.

The Business and Innovation Centre Bratislava, by means of which the Office got into Slovak branch of the European Enterprice Network, joint the innoinfo network in September last year. Because the Office was forced to repudiate an Agreement on Mutual Co-operation with one of the partners, the number of “innoinfo” centres is presently the same as in the past (13), three of them are operating at universities.

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 library provides following services to the public:

-methodical and consultation assistance for the public
-general information provided by Office's experts
-lending service (patent documents, Official Gazettes, special monographs, patent associated literature and reference literature) in the reading room
-interlibrary lending service
-international interlibrary lending service
-sale of special monographs and periodical publications (“Intellectual Property”, Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR” in paper) upon request or on the place
-reprographic services upon request or on the place
-sending of copies of patent documents upon request
-searches on state of the art, patent families, bibliographic data upon request in written or on-line form
-on-line searches in Office’s search system, self-service during a personal visit
-monitoring of the state of selected technical fields upon request (permanent sending of documents)
-registry information provided in the reading room
-CD-ROM workstations available in the reading room


Patent 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
-selected registry data
-patent specifications (meanwhile since 1993)
-Official Gazette
-order forms (searches, patent documents, Official Gazette, special literature)
-products and services
-7-th edition of the IPC (fully searchable)
-core level of the IPC 2006 (in PDF only)
-patent classifications and related information
-annual technical reports on patent information (2002-2008)


Information Centre

Within their professional consultancy activities, the Centre staff provides the public with the necessary IPR-related information personally, by telephone (+421 48 4300 131), mail or e-mail infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk or by fax. The Information Centre includes also “Helpdesk” providing information about electronic on-line filling.

During the second year of operation of Infocentrum IPO SR noted a moderate growth in number of requests for information. In 2008 total of 4 397 requests for information were processed, most of them were submitted by phone. Nearly 12 percent of requests were received from abroad. Received questions related mainly to the cross-border payment of fees and to trademark registration and renewals without use of services of patent representatives.

To make a work of the Information Centre more efficient and transparent the Office launched a testing of the information system Q-integra at the end of the year 2008.


Workplace of the IPO SR in Bratislava

Workplace of the Office, which was opened in 2004 in the building of the Ministry of Finance in Bratislava offered especially services concerning the searches in the fields of trademarks, designs and patents in the last year. In the workplace, there is a filing room and room for discussions and negotiations.

URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of patent applications

The Office's on-line filing room enables filing of the European patent applications, international PCT patent applications and national patent and utility model applications in electronic form http://www.upv.sk/eskipo.php?lang=en&idd=15&idd2=. (For more information see the part „Medium allowed for filing application“, chapter VII).

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and grant procedures related to patents; opposition and appeal procedures related to patents; etc.

Webregisters
http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=en

IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its homepage. Most frequently used databases are "Data extracted from Registers" also called as "Webregisters". Webregisters give public access to data extracted from patent, utility models, European patents, supplementary protection certificates (SPCs) registers, which are kept by the Office. Data concerning in particular pending patent, utility model and SPC applications, all filed applications or granted patents, SPCs and registered utility models in the register are daily updated.

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

Products and services

Comprehensive information concerning the products offered by the Office and other relevant information relating to accession and utilization of the products are on http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=27

-Official Gazette
-patent documents
-magazine Intellectual Property
-IPO SR and IPO CZ publications
-E-zine IPO SR
-on-line order forms
-price list

Basic information about following information services offered by the Office including the contact and the way of their utilization are on http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=28

-patent documentation fund
-IPO SR patent reading room
-patent databases, information and searches
-permanent sending of patent documents
-orders of patent documents and technical publications
-on-line order forms
-price list

For more information relating to services offered by the Office, see the part “Information services available to the public“, chapter VI.

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., bibliographic data, abstract and/or full text information

Regional co-operation

In 2008 IPO SR continued in participation in the joint ESPACE ®- PRECES CD-ROM project (patent specifications of BG, CZ, HU, LT, LV, PL, RO and SK).

International co-operation

Bibliographic data and abstracts of the published patent applications and granted patents in English were supplied to the EPIDOS database in electronic form.

In 2008 followed the mutual exchange of patent documentation and official gazettes between the IPO SR and other offices also international organizations, including the EPO and the WIPO.

Medium used for exchange of priority documents

Priority documents have been supplied to applicants on request in paper form.

Medium allowed for filing applications

Patent and utility model applications are filled in paper, fax or electronic form. The last two are to be added by original filing during the determined period.

The IPO SR enables except on-line filing of European patent applications, European PCT applications and international PCT applications also receiving national patent and utility model applications in electronic form.

In 2008 we received and processed 144 applications in electronic form. This figure represents- in respect of international fillings 66 percent and in respect of national fillings 22 percent – share of applications filed on-line comparing to paper format. The percentage of filed applications on-line is constantly raising thus shows a growing popularity this kind of communication with the Office. In the future the Office plans to make possible to file electronically also other documents related to pending applications, e.g. European patent translations and later also trademarks and designs applications.

VIII. Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)

Training courses for national participants

The Intellectual Property Course
(http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=31)

Since 2000, the IPO SR has been an accredited educational institution providing the Intellectual Property Course. The lecturers are university teachers, experts from practice and the IPO SR experts. An overall number of training lessons extends to 342 hours, out of which 227 hours are lectures and the remaining training hours are devoted to hands-on practical exercising and training.

The Intellectual Property course consists of four separate parts:
module A: Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Essentials;
module B: Creativity - Management of Creativity, Marketing and Economics;
module C: Information in the field of Industrial Property Protection;
module D: Industrial Property Law.

In the academic year 2007/2008 11 participants passed the final examination and submitted their final theses.

Supporting activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.):

Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia VIII. (http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=31)

On April 28, 2008, the IPO SR organised in its premises the conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia VIII. Utility models were the main topic of the Conference, because since January 2008 the new Act on Utility Models became effective. April 28, 2008, was also the Open Door Day of the Office for people who were interested in getting information about intellectual property.

Lectures and Seminars
(http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=31)

The IPO SR in co-operation with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and with the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office organised the seminar Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement from the Point of View of Police and Prosecution for Slovak police and prosecutors in November 2008.

International Seminar on Current Development in Madrid System for expert Slovak public organised by the IPO SR in co-operation with the World Intellectual Property Organization was an important expert event organised in May 2008.

The IPO SR also organised the Meeting of Electronic Services Users in November 25.-26. 2008 within the European Week of Science and Technology. Beginners and advanced users had an opportunity to obtain interesting information also from representatives of the European Patent Office.

Exhibitions (http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=sk&idd=30&idd2=3006)

On April 28, 2008 the IPO SR organised in its premises a vernissage of an exhibition of wooden toys - Development of Design in Slovakia.

In 2008 the IPO SR participated as an exhibitor at 29th international building fair CONECO in Bratislava and at 14th international Engineering Fair in Nitra.

The Office organised in April 22.-24. 2008 5th national contracting exhibition of inventions and technical innovations UmInEx in Banská Bystrica, concurrently with 11th international building fair FOR ARCH SLOVAKIA.

The IPO SR was also represented at 60th international exhibition of ideas, inventions and innovations IENA 2008 in German Nurnberg.

IX. Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:

provide information on legislation related to patents

Information on legislation related to patents

-legislation in force http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=21

-related legislation http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=22

-multilateral treaties http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=24

-EU legislation http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=25

contain the Annual Report of the Office

The Annual Report of the Office
http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=9&idd2=92

if necessary, provide further information related to the topics referred to in the current ATR

Industrial property
http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=2

Web page contains basic information which are useful for the applicant by filing the application of particular type of industrial property right, such as application forms, legislation, instructions of the IPO SR, information for applicant, administrative fees, contact to expert assistance, etc.:

Patents http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=14

SPC http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=20

Utility models http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=15

Designs http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=16

Topographies http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=17

Trademarks http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=18

Geographical indications http://www.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=19

contain patent-related news regarding the Office

Patent-related news providing by the Office
http://www.upv.sk/index.php?lang=en

X. Other relevant matters

New official Office's website was published on 31 August 2009. The ATR on patents for 2008 contains old URL addresses, because previous website is temporary available at http://www.upv.sk/old/.

Original websites of the Office have been actualised till August 30, 2009. Updated websites of the Office are on the address www.indprop.gov.sk or www.upv.sk.