SCIT.ATR.PI.2005.SK

Annual Technical Report 2005 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Slovakia (SCIT/ATR/PI/2005/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 250 patent applications filed in 2005 that is decrease by 44,8 % in comparison with the year 2004. Decrease in the number of patent applications is connected with accession of the Slovak republic to the European Patent Convention (most of the applicants using the PCT system for filing of patent applications prefers the possibility to protect their inventions by the European patent in the territory of the Slovak Republic since July 1, 2002). The PCT applications form 22,4 % (56) of all applications.

The largest share in the number of patent application filed by foreign applicants (95) have the Czech Republic (33), the USA (25), and Germany (9).

In the year 2005, two European applications were filed.

560 patents were granted that is an increase by 0,9 % in comparison with the year 2004.

There were 14 application of SPC’s filed in 2005. All of them are from foreign applicants, the most number is from Great Britain - 4 and from Germany - 4 applications. There were 13 SPC's granted.

On December 31, 2005 there were 4.149 valid patents in the Slovak Republic.

Utility models

There were 377 utility model applications filed in the Office in 2005. This number has increased by 8,3 % in comparison with the previous year. Similarly, the number of applications filed by the Slovak applicants decreased by 1,4 % (278 applications). The share of the Slovak applicants in total number of 377 applications is 73,7 %. Decrease of 13,4 % occurred in number of registered utility models (310).

On December 31, 2005 there were 1.795 valid utility models in the Slovak Republic.

In comparison with the statistics of the years 1999 - 2005, there are following results in patent and utility model area:

utilitymodels_tab

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

Patents

Application in the field of organic chemistry (15,6 %) and medical, dental and hygienic preparations (10,4 %) have the largest share.

Utility models

Almost 31 % registered utility models are from the branch of civil engineering and transport.

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:

Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR“

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)
Corrections of patent documents ( A8, A9, B8, B9, U8, U9, T8, T9)

Patents and utility model information forms part of the Official Gazette - “ Vestník ÚPV SR”, covering all industrial property rights in one publication. Paper form issued monthly is published in standard size A4, paperback and usually in cca 300 pages. In 2005 the Gazette had a circulation of 250 copies, of which 111 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.

The following numbers of documents were published in the Official Gazette in 2005:

309 published patent applications
564 patent specifications
318 utility models
22 application for granting SPC's
8 granted SPC's
18 translations of patent claims of European patent application with designation for SK
246 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 Official 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:

- 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)
- list of translations of patent claims of European patent applications 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 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)
- 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)
- list of registered utility models (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of registered utility models (arranged according to theInternational 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)
- official decisions (refusal, lapse (expiration), revocation, cancellation, etc.)
- assignments of rights and other changes of owners
- registration or granting of licensing contracts in respect of patents and author’s certificates
- termination of licensing contracts
- the right of lien
- 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) 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, etc.)

MS Office 97, QuarkXpress 5.0 for Windows and Corel Draw 10, Photoshop 6.0, FineReader 7.0, Adobe Acrobat 5.05 CE, 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.

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.

Classification and reclassification 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)

The applications were classified and reclassified by Office’s experts according to the International Patent Classification - Int.Cl.7. The WIPO Standards ST.8 and ST.10/C were also used for these purposes. Reclassifying was carried out before granting of patent.

An administrative system for patent applications was fully upgraded with new features of IPC-2006 reflecting the CONOPS, WIPO ST.8 (extended number of IPC data and BRVD rules) and WIPO ST 10/C (IPC symbols layout) in IV.Q of 2005.

The IPC-2006 core level has been in use in the Office since November 2005 for classification the Slovak patent documents to be published as of 1 January 2006.

Hybrid system indexing

For indexing of technical information contained in patent documents the hybrid systems of the IPC were used.

Bibliographic data and full-text processing for search purposes

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 2005, the Office continued in digitalisation of new entries of national patent documentation. The project of retrospective digitalisation of patent documents published by Office since 1993 was completed and for internal needs a part of these documents was processed into the text editing form for fulltext search purposes.

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 (49 titles of technical periodicals and 8.446 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 2005 the regular annual accession of optical discs reached 814 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, 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 2005, 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:
ESPACE - ACCESS EP - A
ESPACE - ACCESS EP - B
ESPACE – ACCESS – EPC (EUROPE)
ESPACE – ACCESS - PRECES
ESPACE – ACCESS - RUSSIA
ESPACE – BULLETIN
PCT Gazette
PCT Impact
GLOBALPAT
PAJ
ESPACE - LEGAL
IPC CLASS 2000
WIPO Handbook
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, INPADOC, 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) and WIPO.

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

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.

Administrative management system based on Lotus Domino.

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

Fast ETHERNET 1000/100/10 Mbit/s, WINDOWS 2000 for servers; workstations PC Pentium, Windows 2000, HP Unix for database, Informix Dynamic Server 9.21, Citrix Metaframe 1.8, SAN HP MSA 1500 CS.

VI. Administration of the industrial property office library 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 2005, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 1.734 users and 1.245 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6.896 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 21.730 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 2005 there were performed 211 patent searches, 2.693 trademark searches and 35 design searches based on 981 written and 142 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 8.414 patent documents in paper form and 814 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 1 421.997 documents, out of which 1 413.583 entries represented documents in electrical form. In addition, there were stored 9.366 first pages of Slovak and Czech patent documents according to additional IPC symbols into the systematically arranged fund. Other new entries, for instance Official Gazettes of the foreign offices (37) 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

The four IPO SR patent information centres and six contact and information points of the IPO SR established in 2003 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 databases via Internet etc.

The Office had organised the three specialized seminars during last year held in the Slovak National Library in Martin and in the Juraj Fándly Library in Trnava, in May and in the State Scientific Library in Košice, in June.

Within the multilateral co-operation programme with EPO the representative of the Centre of Scientific and Technical Information participated on the PATLIB 2005 Conference in Sinaia in Romania. Together with the Office representative the Slovak delegates were thus given the possibility of gaining new knowledge and experience concerning the co-operation of patent offices with regional patent information centres and to get familiar with activities of similar patent information centres established in other European countries.

Information and consulting sites for innovations

Last year the Office managed to provide for the compliance with the requirement of assisting the small and medium sized enterprises, or the technical universities with their innovation related activities, on a systematic basis and spread the information on industrial property protection within the target group. Namely the small and medium sized enterprises are the main bearers of development in Slovakia and at the same time pose a great challenge, when it comes for legal protection of new technical solutions. The Office in favour of small and medium enterprises in 2004 established the first four information and consulting sites for innovations – „INNOINFO“ and another six were established during the last year – The Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry – Regional Office in Bratislava, The Malacky “Incubator”, The Regional Advisory and Information Centre (RPIC) in Komárno, RPIC Poprad, RPIC Prešov and BIC Spišská Nová Ves, s. r. o., Business & Innovation Centre.

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
- IPC (7-th edition)

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 .

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 2005 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 2005 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.

Implementation of the Statement of Principles Concerning the Changeover to Electronic Data Carriers for the Exchange of Patent Documents (please provide a status report on the extent to which your Office has changed over to electronic data carriers for the exchange of patent documents)

The IPO SR fully accepted change-over to electronic data carriers. The exchange of the patent documents in paper form was terminated by the end of 2000. Beginning from 2001 the IPO has been realising the exchange of patent documents only on electronic data carriers.

VIII. Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries

Training courses for national participants

THE COURSE “INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY”

In September a new year of the Intellectual Property course began. The Office’s Institute for Education was established in year 2000, when the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic granted the accreditation to the IPO SR for a period of five years. In January 2005 the Office has obtained a new five-year period accreditation. 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 2005 continued in course 25 participants, out of which 18 employees of IPO SR.

Last year the Office also released a CD-ROM with final theses of the Intellectual Property course attendants during the period from year 2000 to year 2005.

Supporting activities:

CONFERENCE

Almost 70 participants took part in the fifth year of the Conference “Intellectual Property in Slovakia V” held on the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day, the main topic of which were innovations. On this occasion, an open door day of the IPO was held on April 27, during which the Office opened its non-public premises to people. Excursion was connected with presentation of the Office and provision of information and consultancy services.

LECTURES AND SEMINARS

In June 2005 the IPO SR in co-operation with Office for Technical Assistance and Information Exchange of the European Commission (TAIEX) and the World Intellectual Property Organisation organised an international seminar on the Enforcement of intellectual property rights in a modern society. The seminar was predominantly for judges, customs and police officers. For research workers in the area of biotechnology the Office prepared a seminar on legal protection of biotechnological inventions dedicated for scientists in the European Union.

At the end of the year the Office organised a seminar on Support of Intellectual Property. Guests from Poland made presentation on patent information centres, contact and information sites and information and advisory centres of the Office for innovations – „INNOIFO", on project IPR Helpdesk. This project has been addressed within the 5th and 6th framing programme of the European Union, the objective of which is enhance the public awareness on intellectual property related rights and inform the small and medium sized enterprises on possibilities offered by protection with regards to new technical solutions as well as in connection with their subsequent use.

In pursuance of specific requirements the Office provided for a variety of specialisation oriented groups the lectures, presentations and educational courses related to industrial property rights protection.

JOURNAL

Awareness of the public in the field of intellectual property is increased also by the professional magazine INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY magazine (“Duševné vlastníctvo”) issued quarterly by the Office.

Magazine went through a significant change last year. Both, the graphic layout and quality of articles have improved. The magazine offers a wide range of thematically oriented topic. On the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day the IPO SR offered to readers “The Intellectual Property Extra” a sixteen-page full-colour monothematic bulletin. edition No. 3/2005 included a twelve-page integral part was devoted to UmInEx Exhibition 2005 and to “Ján Bahýľ Prize”.

12 editions of the E-zine IPO SR e-mail magazine were released last year. The magazine in electronic form released regularly each month consists of permanent sections with information from the IPO SR, the world, monitoring of periodicals, selected information from the separate editions of the Intellectual Property Magazine and not missing was also the knowledge contest in the area of science and technology, receiving much acclaimed by E-zine readers.

EXHIBITIONS

The IPO SR is continuously enhancing the public awareness on industrial property protection also by means of presentations of fairs and exhibitions. Besides organising the national exhibition UmInEx in Banská Bystrica, on 25th International Building Fair CONECO in Bratislava, at the 35th International Chemistry Fair INCHEBA in Bratislava, at the 11th International Mechanical Engineering Fair in Nitra, and the 15th Annual Conference on Patent Information EPIC 2005 in Budapest as well as at the Exhibition of Innovations IENA 2005 in Nuremberg within a joint stand of the European Patent Offices: „Internationales Patent-Informationszentrum“.

The Conference in Budapest was oriented on the exchange of new knowledge and experience acquired by specialists from patent offices, commercial providers of patent information services and patent information users.

UmInEx 2005 Exhibition

From September 20 to 22, 2005 the Office organised already the fourth year of UmInEx, the national exhibition of inventions and technical news. Within the three days nearly 40 exhibitors had presented their exhibits in the form of drawings, prototypes, technologies models and final products. Quite a few visitors managed to contact the prospective manufacturers and sellers of their new products, which is one of the exhibition main objectives.

PUBLICATIONS

Last year the Office released six publications. Besides the Intellectual Property in Slovakia Conference workshop V included the second amended and updated edition of the publication Intellectual Property – the development tool for small and medium sized enterprises, the second volume of Collection of Selected Decisions by IPO SR (Volume I has been released in year 2003), International Application Form according to PCT (instructions for applicants), UmInEx Exhibitors Catalogue and the five-volume edition of the International Patent Classification.

The information materials focused on a general mission of the Office and the industrial became the subject to specific target groups. The two types of brochures released in the attractive cartoon-like form: Patents and Trademarks were made available to students. The two information brochures entitled: “Making a Mark” and “Looking Good” were intended to small and medium sized enterprises, introduced the issue of trademarks and designs.

OTHER

The year 2005 Ján Bahýľ Prize

The name of the Slovak designer and inventor of helicopter has been given to the prize being granted for extraordinary valuable technical solution in Slovakia. Based on recommendations by an evaluating committee comprised of eleven members the IPO SR the President of the IPO SR grants the Ján Bahýľ Prize in two-year intervals, including a financial premium of 100,000 SKK. It is also in this way the Office wishes to encourage the development of technical creativity and protection of industrial property related activities in Slovakia.

The Ján Bahýľ Prize was acquired by - Duslo, a. s., Šaľa, as the owner of patent SK 283 209 – 4-aminodifenylamine preparation method and the five originators of invention.

Relations with mass media

In the framework of newly launched cooperation with media, IPO SR provided series of radio broadcasted advisory sessions in Slovak Radio, TV reports and spots in TV Markiza and Slovak Television STV as well as popularization of IP field and IPO SR activities in print media.

IX. Other relevant matters