Annual Technical Report 2005 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Poland (SCIT/ATR/TM/2005/PL)
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I. Evolution of registration activities
Changes experienced in terms of application filings and registrations with respect to the previous year
The provisions of Industrial Property Act of 17 December 2004 (as amended in Official Journal 2005 No 163, item 1392 and No 167, item 1398) applied in the field of industrial property protection in 2005.
Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year
In 2005, 27.444 decisions were taken with respect to trademark registration: under the domestic procedure - 19.907 and with respect to international registration - 7.537 The total number of decisions taken was an increase of 2,2% compared to 2004.
In 2005, PPO received 21.312 trademark applications and notifications of international registrations of trademarks designating Poland, including 14.812 applications under the national procedures and 6.500 foreign applications filed under the international procedure, i.e. under the Madrid Agreement on the International Registration of Marks and the Protocol relating to that Agreement.
The number of registered trademarks valid on December 31, 2005 amounted to 92.495 under national procedure and 100.832 under international procedure.
Total number of registered trademarks valid at the end of 2005 was 193.327
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
Publishing, printing, copying techniques
Information on filed trademark applications is published in the "Patent Office's Bulletin" which is issued every two weeks both on paper and on our website.
The PPO has its own publication system, which enables production of the Office's publications on its own.The publishing process is based on the DTP system and covers preparation of the data contained in the Office's database or text editing and typesetting in Corel Ventura 11 and Indesign 3.0. Laser prints constitute the basis for the montage preceding the printing process. Printing is performed on the offset machine and digital reproducer. Publications are book bound in the last phase.
Information on registered trademarks is published monthly in the "Announcements of the PPO"
Information on trademark applications is published in the "Bulletin of the PPO".
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information
Main types of announcements of PPO within the scope of trademark information:
-International registration by WIPO of the trademark designating Poland (prior to examination)
-Trademarks filed under national procedure
-National registration (trademarks)
-Entries and and changes in the registry of trademarks (not included in other separate announcements)
-Decisions on expiry of a right in registration
-Expiry of protection right (not prolonged)
-Decision on the change or abbrogation of the decision (published in PPO)
-International registration recognised in Poland
Mass storage media and microforms used
Trademark information is stored on paper carrier and machine-readable form (discs, CD-ROM and DVD). In 2005 the information was accessible to:
1.External users:
- on the premises of the PPO in the Office's Library, in the form of official bulletins on paper
- in the PPO, for retrieval on the databases contained on CD-ROM (TRACES, DEMAS, CASSIS TRADEMARK PENDING, CASSIS TRADEMARK ASSIGN, CASSIS TRADEMARK REGISTERED, COMMUNITY TRADEMARKS BULLETIN, TRADEMARKS OF RUSSIA, OMPI)
-via the Internet, 8 workstations installed in the Office's Library to perform retrieval from the PPO database containing the complete verbal and graphic data on all trademarks filed and protected in Poland as well as information service on trademarks designating Poland prepared on the basis of the data received from the WIPO.
- from the user's computer via the Internet
2. Polish Patent Office Examiners
- in-house database ROMARIN accessible in the network from examiners' workstations
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of trademark information
The Polish Patent Office uses the International Classification of Goods and Services for the purposes of the registration of marks (Nice Classification) 8th edition as well as International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification) 5th edition. Applicants should classify the goods and services properly. For figurative marks the PPO uses the Vienna Classification system.
During the granting procedure, goods and services classes can be amended by office staff. Reclassification during the application stage is performed by the Office, in the trademark registered, reclassification takes place upon the request of the entitled person.
No electronic classification system are used to check the classification symbols provided by the applicant.
Application documents of national trademarks are scanned and indexed: Server AIX, application-IBM Content Manager.
IV. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep
No manual search files are kept
File Building
Information on trademarks is kept and made available to search in a paper form and on CD-ROMs. The collection is updated on regular basis.
V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems
In 2005 the Polish Patent Office used the existing computerised trademark database for the internal purposes in the field of filing, examination and registration of trademarks. The base includes the following databases in the network system:
In-house systems (online/offline)
MARPOL - bibliographic and graphic database containing trademark applications and registrations as well as negative decisions under the national procedure, updated daily. The database is consulted by the Office's examiners in trademark search.
ROMARIN - database of registered international trademarks
6 ter - database created according to the Paris Convention
MARMAD - search system for trademarks applied under the Madrid Agreement
UPNOTIF - administration service system for trademarks applied under the Madrid Agreement
CTM Search Reports - administration services for purposes of searching CTMs
Data is stored in XML format.The access is carried out via a browser.
In 2005 Polish Patent Office prepared for OHIM 64.908 search reports on community trademark applications.
External databases
Modernisation of the Office's Internet homepage (administration of services for outside users of the Office's information sources) - extended to data retrieval from the CTM DOWNLOAD
Databases on subjects of industrial property filed and under protection in Poland
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics, administrative support, etc.)
Functioning within suppport systems (including administrative service), operating off-line:
- law information system
- patent attorneys information system
- finance-accounting system
- web-based application system with regard to fees control system
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used
In-house computer network (LAN) based on the Fast Ethernet and Gigabit Ethernet solutions. Alcatel and 3com active tools
Basic functions of the servers:
-Email and group work servers working on MS Exchange 2003
-Domain controller on Windows 2003 with DHCP, DNS
-Rounting and firewall on MS ISA Server and CISCO PIX
-web page on the Microsoft Content Management Server
-Tivoli Storage Manager system of data backup 5.2
-Sophos Anti-virus system and email scanner
- Application for database searching: MIMOSA V 5., Patent WebAccess, PatentWS, IRIS
The working applications were supported on the basis of the following tools:
-REVELATION- managing external patent and utility models databases
-DB2 and JAVA-managing trademark and industrial design database
-Pearl, PHP, C#. NET- creating of inter- and intra- websites
-IBM CONTENT MANAGER - managing the application documents of trademarks and industrial designs
-SQL SERVER and C# - managing the external database
-ULTRANET and IRIS - supporting the net access to optical discs
-Adobe and Corel software- publishing purposes
VI. Administration of trademark 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)
In 2005 the following publications containing trademark information were accessible in the Office's Library on paper and in the Internet:
-"Wiadomości Urzędu Patentowego" ("Announcements of the PPO")
-"Biuletyn Urzędu Patentowego" (Patent Office's Bulletin)
The PPO database was rendered accessible for the outside users from 8 workstations installed in the Office's library to perform retrieval. This databse is accesible from the user's computer via the Internet.
Trademark information services for users were performed by the Information unit of the Office and in the library where customers may obtain help within the retrieval and searching procedures.
Excerpts, duplicates and certificates officially confirming the specified entries in the trademark register were delivered under payment on user's request.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information
International or regional cooperation in the exchange of trademark information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes
In 2005 PPO received official bulletins containing among others data on trademarks from 21 countries, OHIM and WIPO.
The PPO received 50 numbers (300 booklets) of Gazette OMPI des Marques Internationales free of charge.
In 2005 exchange of trademark documentationa nd information with foreign patent offices was continued. The PPO sent abroad:
to 36 countries, 432 copies of "Announcements of the Patent Office"
to 16 countries, 416 copies of "The Patent Office's Bulletin"
Under agreements, the PPO provided for a fee information on filed and protected trademarks in Poland to the Patent Attorneys Company "Patpol" and Compu-Mark NV company.
Exchange of machine-readable information
The PPO received trademark data on CD-ROMs from the USA, Germany, OHIM and WIPO
18 sets of TRACES database were sold within the country
VIII. Matters concerning education and training including technical assistance to developing countries
Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)
In 2005 within industrial property protection the following events were organised:
-Nationwide conference "Poland in the European Patent Organisation. New Goals and Prospects"
-Informational -promotional stand in the Museum of Technic in Warsaw during the 9th Exhibition of Inventions awarded at international exhibitions in 2004
-Nationawide conference on World Intellectual Property Day
-Promotional stand of PPO at the PATLIB 2005 conference
-Informational-promotional stand at the European Exhibition of Patents and Inventions in the Field of Iron Metallurgy, held in Ostrava, Czech Republic
-Joint stand, together with EPO at International Fairs in Poznan
During the fairs a forum of engineers "Innovativeness in Machine and Agricultural Industry " took place
-Promotional stand at the Science Picnic of BIS Polish Radio
-Symposium of Baltic Countries on "Patent System and Innovativeness of Economy" organised jointly by EPO, Jagiellonski University and Krakow Technical University
Seminar for the employees of PPO and Patent Information Centres "Cooperation with the European Patent Office" organised jointly with AGH University of Science and Technology
Seminar for employees of PPO and Patent Information Centres "Cooperation with the European Patent Office"
-Seminar for patent attorneys from universities and academies in Cedzyna
-Informational/promotional stand at IV International Exhibition of Patents "Innovations" in Gdansk
-X Nationwide Conference for Patent Information Centres
-2-day Seminar for EPO member states organised by PPO and European Patent Academy "Supplementary Protection Certificates"
-Promotional stand at the EPIDOS-PATINOVA 05 International Conference organised by EPO in Budapest
-Seminar in Zielona Gora attended by the employees of PPO and other
scientific and industrial institutions
-Awards ceremony of the winners of the 2nd edition of Competitions organised by the Patent Office for the best poster, doctoral and master's thesis and student dissertation on the industrial property protection
Training courses for national and foreign participants
In 2005 the following training activities were conducted:
-17 newly employed underwent civil service training and 24 employees took internal civil service examination
-52 PPO employees participated in trainings organised by national training centres, such as : National School of Public Administration, Provincial Center for Staff Training, Office of the Civil Service etc. The subjects of the trainings included: "European Integration", "New Aspects of Patent Protection"
-numerous trainings on new technologies were organised (MS xchange, C#. XML etc.), financed mainly within the multilateral cooperation programmes with EPO
-3 lectures were organised with 170 participants in total: "Infringement of trademark law without the use of goods", "Diplomatic Protocol", "Nanotechnology"