Annual Technical Report on Industrial Design Information Activities in 2016 submitted by BRAZIL/INPI
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Where URLs are requested below, it is preferred that either URLs which are likely to remain stable over time (three years or more) are provided, or home (main) page URLs are provided with a short explanation of how to access the corresponding information.
The expression "industrial designs" covers industrial designs and models.
Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in this series of Annual Technical Reports.
I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of industrial design information activities and expected time frames for their realization
The technical examination division IX (DITEC IX) is responsible for the examination of industrial design register applications.
We are promoting studies and discussions about best practices to create equal criteria in examination of industrial design. The main effort is the development of the Industrial Designs Manual. The first version of the manual has already been finalized and is in public consultation.
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies(plans) mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
The main project in the year of 2016 was the creation of a workgroup for the backlog reduction. From January to August, the examiners participated in the working group to decrease the backlog of the first instance, at this stage three more examiners were deployed to assist the work group. From August to December, the examiners participated in the working group to decrease the backlog of the second instance.
The Permanent Committee to Improve Procedures and Guidelines (CPAPD) is a workgroup formed by the director and the general coordinators that promote the discussions about improvements and best criteria to the activity of examination of industrial design application.
Main areas of industrial design information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year
(N/a)
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
In 2016 the Brazilian IP Office (INPI-BR) received 6,027 industrial design applications, representing a slight decrease of 0.2 from 6,038 applications filed in 2015. In that period residents increased their applications by 3.4%, from 3,288 to 3,400, to see their participation reach 56% in 2016 against 54% in the previous year. On the other hand, non-residents decreased their applications in the period from 2,750 to 2,627 (-4.5%) and saw their participation shrink to 44%, after reaching 46% in 2015.
Considering only the non-residents total, the countries in the top 5 applicants represented together 70% of their industrial designs applications filed in 2016 – United States (33%), Germany (12%), Japan (11%), France (7%) and Sweden (7%).
The number of industrial designs granted in 2016 (6,972) more than doubled the grants of the year before (3,285). Residents and non-residents had the same participation in the grants (50% each one), while in 2015 residents were awarded with 43% of the grants and non-residents with 57%.
Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.
Others statistics related to Brazilian patents applications are available at http://www.inpi.gov.br/sobre/estatisticas.
II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs
-Contacts:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/menu-servicos/desenho
-Questions about Industrial Designs:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/menu-servicos/desenho/desenho-industrial-mais-informacoes
-Industrial Designs procedures:
http://www.inpi.gov.br/menu-servicos/desenho/guia-basico-de-desenho-industrial
Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
Available online system that allows the filing of the registration request. See the following link: http://www.inpi.gov.br/menu-servicos/desenho/como-fazer-online-pedidos-e-peticoes-de-di
Classification and reclassification activities; classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification
The Design Documents were organized according to a National Classification before 2000. The Locarno Classification has been used to classification and search activities since January, 2001.
Other activities
(N/a)
III. SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE
Main types of publications in the field of industrial design information, outline of the content (industrial design applications, design patents, registrations, etc.) and medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)
Since April 2005, selected bibliographic data relating to BR Industrial designs are published in the weekly electronic Brazilian Official Gazette (Revista da Propriedade Industrial - RPI).
Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.
Since April 2005, official notices and selected bibliographic data relating to BR Industrial Designs are published in the weekly electronic Brazilian Official Gazette (Revista da Propriedade Industrial - RPI). Official gazettes are available on the Brazilian Patent Office website in PDF and TXT format, at http://revistas.inpi.gov.br/rpi/, and all published officials gazettes are stored in the library available to the public. Bibliographic data of Brazilian Industrial Designs are available for consultation at an internal database (SINPI) and at internet (www.inpi.gov.br). Keyword searches in titles or abstracts are available only in Portuguese.
Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external documentation and databases
Information products (coverage, medium, etc.) and services available to external users; conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)
INPI has a paper collection of BR industrial designs documents classified according to Locarno Classification. The Design Documents were organized according to a National Classification before 2000. The Locarno Classification has been used to classification and search activities since January, 2001.
In order to carry out searches in industrial design documents or other publications, the INPI staff access industrial design databases of other countries, since they are available online for free. The INPI dos not use any paid database during the examination of industrial designs. Official policy is that a worldwide online search should be carried out as whole or part of every industrial design search or substantive examination (assessing novelty and originality after the grant) done in this Office.
Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)
(N/a)
Other sources
(N/a)
IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements
The SINPI (Integrated System of Industrial Property) is the in-house system available for searching industrial designs documents since 1986. SINPI is a client-server model developed in Delphi that allows the industrial designs examination and provide all support to the weekly official gazette and others official documents as the registration certificate. According to its research and development focus, INPI is evaluating modern web solutions.
Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office
In order to support business processes related to the IPO, the core ICT solutions are divided in the following levels:
(i) Information Security Infrastructure: Essentially, this environment guarantees that information is protected from intentional or accidental modifications, by using the Fortnet firewall (Fortigate 1000C) for filtering, VPN controlling and Spam controlling. This hardware also acts as an IDS agent to inspect the inbound and outbound network activity identifying suspicious patterns, including Internet traffic. The INPI uses another kind of firewall to isolate networks like PROSUR, where the support is obtained from the pfSense-br.org. To complement this structure, the FortiAnalyzer guarantees the integration of network logging, analysis and reporting into a system with the view to create knowledge of security events throughout the network.
(ii) Networking Infrastructure: The focus of this structure is to maintain connectivity between LAN and the server farm, employing the central switch Matrix N-7 from Enterasys. As this switch is located in the INPI 's Datacenter, it has the function of concentrating all the incoming connections from the offices of INPI. This infrastructure is complemented by the SAN switches from Brocade to support connections in fiber channel to the Virtualization Infrastructure, Storage Infrastructure and Backup Infrastructure. A Wireless Internet network with 100 access points ensures that all floors of the two main buildings have Internet access. The Internet link consists on a High Load Balance through F5 Big IP System 2000S, two internet connection links with 300Mbps speed. The Central Data Center in Rio de Janeiro is interconnected with 12 branch regional offices with a MPLS connection with 64Mbps.
(iii) Virtualization Infrastructure: The DataCenter has HP Blade Servers with 16 Blades under two Intel Xeon Quad-core 2.83 Ghz processors and 32GB RAM and 4 Blades under two Intel Xeon Quad-core 2.83 Ghz processors and 512GB RAM . All hosts are built in virtual machines running operating systems over the virtualization platform from vMware mounted with vSphere 5.1 and vCenter 5.1. With more than 210 virtual machines, the operating systems are distributed through Windows Server 2012 and Red Hat Enterprise Linux for Virtual Datacenters.
(iv) Storage Infrastructure: To provide rapid response in all IT environments, INPI invested in the Hitachi High End VSP solution, that is responsible to maintain the information stored in 137 Terabytes with Raid 6 array ensuring availability required to the business process. The backup architecture is base on a tape robot storage.
(v) Desktop Infrastructure: The computers used to support the business process are based in the solution from Itautec Infoway ST4273 with two monitor with 21 inches per research.
Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources
Search tools are available to technical staff and technical personal performing industrial design information activities to external users. There is a corporate mainframe database (Integrated System of Industrial Property - SINPI) for processing the life of a BR industrial design application, where searches can also be performed. The Office's intranet contains a large collection of useful information for the INPI staff. Copies of the documents cited in the search reports are produced in-house to supply the applicants.
Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file
File building and updating of search file, classified under the Locarno Classification is centralized. BR industrial design documents collection is arranged according to Locarno Classification (10th Edition) and is available in paper.
Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)
(N/a)
Other matters
RPI is a web based search engine for Trademarks, Patents, Industrial Design and Computer Program applications since 1986. This database is available through Internet and allows searching bibliographic text and viewing Trademark images.
V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION
Office's library (if deals with industrial design information): equipment, collection management, network of libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign libraries
The library catalog, designed in MARC format, is available for the general public through INPI’s website. The public can access the collection and other electronic resources in OPAC terminals, at the Library's Reading Room. As a WIPO Depository Library, the library staff catalogues the intellectual property publications and make it available for the general public. Also, the library is a member of the Brazilian Bibliographical Exchange Program - COMUT, provided by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, which has more than 2,500 other partner libraries in Brazil and overseas.
Publications related to different business procedures and industrial design information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.
The library's technical literature collection covers all aspects of intellectual property with its holdings of some 16,000 references, between monographs, articles, book chapters and over 34,000 electronic periodical titles, provided by Capes Consortia. In the scope of industrial designs, the library has about 130 works and 70 titles of electronic periodicals. These materials can be consulted in the Library's Reading Room. Also, the library electronic catalog is available by internet on the INPI website.
Cooperation with universities, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
The library belongs to Capes Consortia, from the Ministry of Education, comprising 422 other libraries from Brazilian academic institutions. It allows INPI to have access to ‘Portal Periódicos Capes”, a great virtual library wich contains more than 34,000 electronic periodicals and 400 reference databases.
Education and training: training courses, e learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
The library offers training courses for the use of electronic catalog and Portal Periódicos Capes, teaching users to search in different fields of knowledge, including technical literature in industrial designs and related areas. Also, the Library offers the course "Intellectual Property for Librarians", that aims to teach Brazilian librarians to deal with different aspects of Intellectual Property information.
Other activities
(N/a)
VI.INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION
International exchange of industrial design information in machine-readable form (e.g., Official Gazettes)
Our Official Gazettes (Revista de Propriedade Industrial – RPI) are available on the Brazilian Patent Office website in PDF and TXT format, at http://revistas.inpi.gov.br/rpi/, and all published officials gazettes are stored in the library available to the public. Bibliographic data of Brazilian Industrial Designs are available for consultation at an internal database (SINPI) and at internet (www.inpi.gov.br). Keyword searches in titles or abstracts are available only in Portuguese.
Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to industrial design information
In the year 2016, the INPI database of industrial designs was integrated with the Designview database. Designview is a centralized access point to view the registered design information held by any of the participating National Offices, in a unique presentation format, independently of which office the data is coming from. The design search tool will be based on the data of the registers of the participating offices, the WIPO and the EUIPO. Applications filed since 2000 are fully available in the Designview database.
In November 2016 INPI participated in the first edition of the Design Europa Awards in Milan, Italy, at the invitation of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO). The award is a newly created initiative by EUIPO to foster the intellectual property system and encourage its appreciation among designers and companies.
Assistance to developing countries
There were no official programs about assistance to developing countries on industrial design protection.
Other activities
(N/a)
VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS
(N/a)