CWS.ATR.TM.2012.HU

Annual Technical Report 2012 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Hungary (CWS/ATR/TM/2012/HU)

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.

I. Evolution of registration activities

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

TRADE MARKS

Main figures of trade mark applications aimed at Hungary under international cooperations and filed following the national ways

International trade mark applications

International trade mark applications 2117 (2011) 2102 (2012)
Community trade mark applications 105857 (2011) 107925 (2012)

National trade mark applications

National trade mark applications 3772 (2011) 4177 (2012)
Foreign trade mark applications 425 (2011) 422 (2012)
National applications in total 3923 (2011) 4599 (2012)

Figures of national trade mark granting procedures
(2011) (2012)
National trade mark registrations 3075 (2011) 2993 (2012)
Refused applications 161 (2011) 208 (2012)
Lapsed applications 886 (2011) 1 340 (2012)
Completed applications 4122 (2011) 4 541 (2012)
Pending applications 2544 (2011) 2 656 (2012)

Number of national, international and Community trade marks valid in Hungary

Valid national trade marks 53973 (2011) 56130 (2012)
Registered Community trade marks 792625 (2011) 887840 (2012)

GEOGRAPHICAL INDICATIONS

Last year 8 new applications for international appellations of origin under the Lisbon Agreement were submitted to the HIPO, the decision on these applications were in process at the end of the year. In 2012, no application for national geographical indication were received by the HIPO. 830 appellations of origin and 47 geographical indications were valid at the end of the year.

TM_Mainfiguresoftrademarks

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

As a consequence of the foreigner applicants’ choice preferring the easier and cheaper way of Community trade mark system, the number of international (under the Madrid Agreement) trade mark applications in Hungary – after significant decrease for years was stagnant compared to the previous years (2102). Domestic applicants filed 292 international (under the Madrid Agreement) trade mark applications, which is an increase by 15% compared to the figures of the previous year.
The number of trade mark applications filed in national route was 4599, which is a nearly 10% increase compared to the previous year.

In national trade mark registration procedures 4541 cases were completed, which is an increase by 9%. In 2012, applicants have received protection in 2993 cases.

Costumers requested accelerated procedure in 141 cases and particularly accelerated registration procedure in 56 cases last year.
In 2012, the number of inter partes cases relating to trade mark registrations decreased as much as 17%. The number of cancellation requests remained at a law level (39 requests arrived), the number of requests for revocation was half compared to the previous year (11 cases). The HIPO proceeded in 60 inter partes cases, which exceeded by 20% the number of new requests. As a result thereof, the number of pending cases and the processing time also decreased.
In 2012, 116 oppositions were filed. The processing time of trade marks under opposition procedures reduced to 8,5 months from 9,3 months of the previous year. The number of pending trade mark procedures decreased by one third to 105.

The number of trade marks valid in Hungary is constantly increasing. At the end of last year the number of valid national trade marks was 56 130 (an increase of 4% compared to the previous year). According to preliminary data, the number of valid international trade marks (under the Madrid Agreement) was 148 626 last year. The number of Community trade marks valid also in Hungary was 887 840. Therefore, the number of international trade marks (under the Madrid Agreement) valid in Hungary was by 23% and the number of Community trade marks was by 12% more than in the previous year.

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

Annual Report: http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/hivatalrol/

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes

Publishing, printing, copying techniques

Since 1 January 2006, the Gazette of Patents and Trademarks has been published electronically, and accessible on the website of the Office free of charge, in searchable pdf-format, authenticated by electronic signature. The interest in the publication further increased during 2012: users downloaded 2 653 000 pages in a year.

The e-dossier gives inspection and communication platform providing online administration.

The e-register is an electronic register of the industrial property applications filed with the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO) and of the industrial property rights granted/registered by the HIPO, as well as a register of the licences granted for orphan works of copyright. It is available without charge or prior registration from 1 March 2011.

The IP-search is an electronic searchable database, available also ont he website of the HIPO. All industrial property rights are accessible in it. Granted patent documents are also accessible int he IP-search in searchable format.

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

Since 1 January 2006, the Gazette of Patents and Trademarks has been published electronically, and accessible on the website of the Office free of charge, in searchable pdf-format, authenticated by electronic signature. The interest in the publication further increased during 2012: users downloaded 2 653 000 pages in a year.
From January 2008 the Gazette has been published twice a month providing more favourable conditions for shortening the registration period of the fast-track trademark procedure. The content of the Gazette that appears in the middle of the month covers the national and international trademark publications. The edition appearing at the end of the month continues to be published in full content in electronic format.

Mass storage media and microforms used

Used mass storage media are hard discs, magnetic tapes microfilms and paper for backup.

Techniques used for the generation of trademark information (printing, recording, photocomposing, etc.)

All incoming paper documents has been scanned and OCR-ed since 2011, These documents are accessible int he Unified Administrative System of the Office.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online trademark gazettes and to other sources of trademark information, including download of bulk trademark data

GAZETTE, IP-SEARCH, E-REGISTER, E-DOSSIER are accessible ont he webpage of the HIPO: http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/English/index.html#

III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of trademark information

Classification and reclassification activities; Classification systems used, e.g., International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification), International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification), other classification (please indicate whether goods and services for the registration of marks and whether the figurative elements of marks are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification(s) is (are) used)

Nice Classification and Vienna classification systems are used.

Use of electronic classification systems to check the classification symbols furnished by an applicant and which are contained in the lists of goods and/or services

Nice Classification and Vienna classification systems are accessible on the webpage of the HIPO:
http://classifications.mszh.hu/nice/index.htm, http://classifications.mszh.hu/vienna/index.htm

Obligation for applicants to use pre-defined terms of the classification applied

It is recommended for applicants to use the pre-defined terms of the Nice classification system, but is allowed to deviate from that.

Bibliographic data and processing

All official data are stored in the Unified Administrative System of the Office.
The e-dossier gives inspection and communication platform providing online administration.
The e-register is an electronic register of the industrial property applications filed with the Hungarian Intellectual Property Office (HIPO) and of the industrial property rights granted/registered by the HIPO, as well as a register of the licences granted for orphan works of copyright. It is available without charge or prior registration.
From 1 March 2011, the official industrial property and copyright registers are available on the website of the HIPO.
The IP-search is an electronic searchable database, available also ont he website of the HIPO. All industrial property rights are accessible in it. Granted patent documents are also accessible int he IP-search in searchable format.

IV. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep

File Building

The Unified Administrative System of the Office covers the bibliographic and image data, the documents and the official letters belonging to the different intellectual property rights (with the additional data that are not accessible for the public).
The scanned HU documents and incoming documents, images from EPO, WIPO, OHIM are downloaded to the database continuously.

Updating

The Unified Administrative System and the electronic public databases have a daily update.

V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems

In-house systems (online/offline)

ACSEPTO is used as in-house system, covering the E-SEARSH system (HU), CTM-online system (OHIM) and ROMAREN.

External databases

The CTM-online system (OHIM) and ROMAREN are accessible through ACSEPTO.
In special cases 6ter is also used.

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

The bibliographic and image data, the documents and the official letters belonging to the different intellectual property rights are stored in the Unified Administrative System of the Office. Examinars can access all data and documents stored int this database.
In 2012 proceeded the continuous further development of the system of electronic official administration and communication as well as of the electronic information services: the English language version of the E-file inspection and the patent revocation database of E-search were prepared, while development took place in the result interface of the latter service.
Harmonising the OHIM seniority database, downloading the international appellations of origin and their representation on E-publication interfaces were also among the important developments.
Last year the preparations continued for the renewal of the Unified Record and Administration System (ENYV) supporting the official administration, under the working name SZEMAFOR.
Related to the project, in August 2012, the Office submitted an application to the support system of the Electronic Public Administration Operational Programme of the New Széchenyi Plan (EKOP), which in January 2013 was considered by the Managing Authority as worthy of a support of HUF 249 million.

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

• Servers:

Unix Tru64 server: 2 peaces
Linux server: 45 peaces
Netware server: 1 peaces
MS Windows server: 27 peaces
VMware ESX: 11 peaces
Oracle VM/RAC: 2 peaces
ASA VPN: 2 peaces
ZORP: 2 peaces

• 286 workstations (Windows Xp)
• 41 notebook (Windows Xp)
• 140 printer

VI. Administration of trademark information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering trademarks, assisting clients with search procedures, obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

Planning, administration, automation, security

The electronic information services are accessible in the Patent Library for its clients.
All official data are in the Unified Administrative System of the Office.
The electonic information services are: E-gazette made automatically with short lead time; the electronic and certified E-register being accessible online; the search platform based on new technology and continuously updated (E-search); the platform provides electronic document inspection; the electronic register creates the communication platform providing online administration.

Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and trademark information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)

GAZETTE, IP-SEARCH, E-REGISTER, E-DOSSIER are accessible ont he webpage of
the HIPO:
http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/English/index.html#, http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/English/vedjegy/

The activities of the Office's customer service were followed by high interest also in 2012. Enquiries received by telephone were down by 13% in 2012, but still the telephone was the most frequent means of communication, there was a slight decrease in the number of enquiries in person or those online: the HIPO received 6640 enquiries (in 2011 7680). In a further 1039 cases the enquiries aimed at acquirng information from a database.

Special searches are accessible on the webpage of the HIPO:
The search of information and the evaluation of the findings require special expertise. The staff of the Hungarian Patent Office has an experience of many decades on the field of trademark searches.
Available trademark services:
Simplified Trademark Filtering
Trademark Search
Trademark Monitoring
CETMOS - Regional Trademark Similarity Search

http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/English/szolgaltatasok/vedjegy_szolg.html

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

https://ugyintezes.hipo.gov.hu/eBej2/Step1Case4.page

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 trademarks; opposition and appeal procedures related to trademarks; etc.

http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/English/vedjegy/

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., trademark search service(s) and trademark databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

http://www.sztnh.gov.hu/English/szolgaltatasok/vedjegy_szolg.html

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information

Exchange of machine-readable information

HIPO is one of the participating offices in the TMview.

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.)

The Office has a decisive role in supporting and developing domestic innovation by substantially contributing to the strengthening of IP awareness and activities of the major target groups of the national innovation sphere (particularly SMEs, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, higher education).
In the framework of the successful VIVACE programme, in 2012, the Office already co-operated with 20 partners to organise awareness events and elementary level IP courses. During the year, in the framework of the programme, there were 16 larger events, which attracted more than 50 participants each and gave task to 3-4 lecturers. At the events participants were not only given intellectual property knowledge but also other useful information for enterprises.
During 2012, the members of the PATLIB network, supporting the most important universities of Hungary, provided information to interested visitors on a total of 171 occasions.

Training courses for national and foreign participants

Based on its several decade long activities in the field of education, the HIPO has a decisive role in disseminating knowledge on intellectual property protection. The industrial property courses organised by HIPO substantially contribute to the development of the domestic industrial property culture, to the raising of intellectual property awareness and the education of the new professional generation in Hungary.
During the year, 130 participants received elementary level certificate on IP. It was typically the researchers, lecturers, students and the representatives of enterprises who participated in the courses organised in co-operation with the Chambers of Commerce and Industry.
74 students passed successfully the intermediate level industrial property exam in 2012. The third semester of the advanced level industrial property course, started in 2011, was completed by 40 students successfully.

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 trademarks