CWS.ATR.PI.2013.RS

Annual Technical Report 2013 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Serbia (CWS/ATR/PI/2013/RS)

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. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PATENT INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization

- Within Bilateral cooperation program with the EPO, scanning of national patent documentation backlog continued in 2013 and the period of three years 1973-1975 was finished. On regular basis all newly published documents were scanned.
- Development of Federated register for connecting legal status of EPO validation in Serbia with EPO register was planned for 2013.
- Development of national patent register (in 2014).
- Implementation of e-Filing portal (end of 2014).
- Implementation of WIPO EDMS (in 2014).

New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks

- Continuing of implementation of WIPO EDMS and WipoScan.
- Fully functional e-Government portal.
- Project for e-Filing Portal (July 2014 - December 2014). This aims to improve the e-filing business efficiency as well as the related service quality, and to improve compatibility with WIPO IPAS.
- Development and testing of National patent register.

Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year

- Continuing of use Java technologies, Oracle DB and Glassfish application server
- Implementation of certificates at e-Filing.

Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes

National patent applications in 2013
Patent applications filed by domestic applicants:
201, +5.24 % compared to 2012 (191)
Foreign applications filed directly at the IPO:
7, -65 % compared to 2012 (20)
PCT applications entered national phase:
13, no change compared to 2012 (13)
TOTAL National patent applications: 221, -1.36% compared to 2012 (224)

Requests for validation of EP patents in Republic of Serbia:
373, +2.75% compared to 2012 (363)

Patent applications filed in 2013 by the field of technology:
12.7% Electrotechnique
11% Agriculture, food products
10.4% Health; Leisure
8.6% Transport
9% Instruments
6.8% Engines and pumps
6.8% Organic chemistry
6% Civil engineering
6% Goods for personal use, home appliances
32.7% Other

PCT applications filed at Serbian IPO as a RO in 2013
22, +29% compared to 2012 (17)


Petty patent applications in 2013
Domestic applicants: 71, -5.3% compared to 2012 (75)
Foreign applicants: 6, +50% compared to 2011 (3)
TOTAL: 77, -1.3 % compared to 2012 (78)


Number of patents granted in 2013
Resident patentee: 78, -1.3% compared to 2012 (79)
Foreign patentee: 58, -34 % compared to 2012 (88)
Validation of European patents with RS office: 357, -3.2% compared to 2012 (369)
TOTAL: 493 -8% compared to 2012 (536)


Number of petty patents granted in 2013
Domestic patentee: 47, -23% compared to 2012 (61)
Foreign patentee: 4, -33.3compared to 2012 (6)
TOTAL: 51, -24% compared to 2012 (67)

Number of valid patents in 2013
Number of nationally granted valid patents: 1275, +2.4% compared to 2012 (1245)
Number of valid European patents: 1369, +29.4.compared to 2012 (1058)
TOTAL: 2644 in 2013, +14.8% compared to 2011 (2303)

Number of valid petty patents in 2013:
240, +20% compared to 2012 (200)

Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.

Website of the IPO is updated daily with the news in Serbian language and in English only those of greater importance. The news webpage is the homepage of IPO website www.zis.gov.rs
At the following link to the IPO website, all Annual reports of the IPO activities from 2006 onward are available in PDF. Statistical data are available for each IP rights in relevant part of the document. It is bilingual in Serbian and English.
http://www.zis.gov.rs/about-us/annual-report.106.html

Also, the statistical data are available as the tables for each IP rights at separate web page of IPO website. At following link is Patent statistics in English
http://www.zis.gov.rs/upload/documents/pdf_sr/pdf_patenti/Statistika_patenti_2013.pdf

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT 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

IPO Serbia has a public library where all persons can get the consultancy in person for patent filing from the patent examiners. Through Education and Information center and the seminars it delivers to the participants, information on patent system and the proceedings as well as patent drafting are the topics which are included in basic and advanced training modules. Each month on third Thursday, Open Door event is organized for customer’s consultancy beside the opportunity to have them every day on regular basis. On 12 occasions for this event, 94 customers visited IPO.
E-filing system for patents is not available yet, but it is planned to be functional in 2015. Some of services like payment of fees and changes in the status are available on-line through centralized governmental e-government service.
Instructions for drafting patent application and for the process of patent filling are available at the website as well as the examples of formally correct patent applications from the different fields. All forms and guidelines are available at the following link:

http://www.zis.gov.rs/prava-is/patenti/obrasci,-uputstva-i-primeri.4.html

The scheme of the proceedings for patent and petty patent applications with the description and the deadlines is available at the following link.

http://www.zis.gov.rs/upload/documents/pdf_sr/pdf_patenti/Dij_postupka_P_MP_28_5_13.pdf

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

Not available. Only published patent applications/granted patents are available in electronic form through patent databases. Patent application work files are still in paper form even though administration system is automated and IPAS is in use.

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), reclassification³ activities; classification systems used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)); matters concerning indexing of patent information

In 2013 the version 2012.01 and later 2013.01 of IPC were used to classify the new applications and IPC symbols assigned are indexed. The application is classified upon receiving for the purpose of assignment to examiner, when the first search report is done, than reclassified for the purpose of publication if there were some changes in the meantime in IPC edition and before grant. Earlier published patent applications classified according with the earlier IPC editions are reclassified when granted.

There is a link to the IPC translated in Serbian at IPO web site, with previous versions. http://www.zis.gov.rs/informacione-usluge/baze-podataka/baza-podataka-za-patente.355.html

The changes of last version of IPC 2013.01 as well as of 2012.01, are completely done within the office by examiners and installed by IT department with the translation kit that IPO got from WIPO.

Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents

All granted patent and petty patent are published with the abstract on the first page. The abstracts and titles are translated in English and entered into MIMOSA RS database in Serbian and English languages. Also, in 2012 Espacenet RS was launched but became functional in 2013. Espacenet RS is updated on regular basis with the publication of each IPOS Official gazette. Patent document after retrieval can be viewed and downloaded in PDF.

III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Main types of publications of the Office (patent applications, full text, first pages, abstracts, bibliographic data, granted patents, etc.), medium (on paper, on CDs, online – URLs)

Official IPO Gazette contains bibliographic data with the abstracts in Serbian and English on published patent applications, registered patents and registered petty patents. Also information on requests for Supplementary protection certificate which can be applied for from June 2013 are published in gazette.
Full text of all published patent documents in Gazette, published since 1973, are available on Publication server and they can be searched by the application/publication number, IPC symbol, document kind and publication date after its issuing on the following URL address in PDF format. The documents are scanned and cannot be searched by key words in full text.

http://www.zis.gov.rs/информационе-услуге/базе-података.355.html

Publishing department of IPO prints in-house whole patent documents after the grant of patent/petty patent as well as patent certificates, application forms as well as guide for drafting the patent application.
Patent documentation in paper is still available but not for public use in separate room at the Office. Since 2008- 2009 all national patent documents from 1973 are stored after reverting on Eposcan into PDF on Publication Server and which is the basis for national MIMOSA RS database which can be searched by all bibliographic criteria.

Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online – URL), etc.

Intellectual Property Gazette is the basic official source of information about all intellectual property rights. 6 issues of IP Gazette were issued in 2013 – one issue in two months. Since the beginning of 2012 the Intellectual Property Gazette is published only in electronic form in PDF format on the website of the IPO and to the following link

http://www.zis.gov.rs/информационе-услуге.48.html

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases

All the searches at the Office are computerized. Each working station has fast internet access and all external, mostly free, patent databases are accessible through it. National database in electronic form primarily was internal and in 2009 became publicly on-line available. MIMOSA professional search software for advanced search through published national patent documents can be installed by user and then the search can be conducted. Internally, IPAS administration system is used for administration of patent applications.
IPO's examiners are provided with access to the professional database EPOQUE-net through secure connection with EPO server. This database is used since 2009 for examination matters together with all free available databases of patent and non-patent literature. Office has agreement with National Library for free access to database COBSON of scientific non-patent literature.

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to external users, conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)

The Public library or public reading room of the Department for Patent Documentation is part of the Information Services Sector.

Informationproductsandpatentdocumentcollections - Information products and collections available to external users

Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)

On-line e-register for patents is planned to be functional at the end of 2014. Legal status (validity, payment of maintenance fees) can be reviewed in hard copies registers at the office free of charge or can be ordered on commercial basis upon the request.

IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements

For the administration of patent, petty patent, supplementary protection certificate, program IPAS is used which has been given to the IPO by the World Intellectual Property Organization (and the WIPO is also providing assistance for its implementation. In 2013, broad testing and adjustment of IPAS were done for work with the new operating systems Windows7-x64, MS Word 2010/2013-x64 and Oracle Client 12c-x86. Program Java (2.7.0) IPAS is operational in the Trademark Department while the Patent Sector still uses the Centura version (2.4.27) of IPAS.

Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office

Internet access is achieved through direct optical connection to the provider at 20Mbit/sec, 2xCisco ASA 5510 in active/standby firewall configuration.

IPAS server for patents - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX200 server, 4GB RAM memory, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, aplication software is IPAS (proprietary), database is Oracle.
Server for patents:
Internet access - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX300 server, 4 GB RAM, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, web browser as a client, application server Apache/Tomcat, MySql database.
Intranet access - FujitsuSiemens Esprimo P workstation as a server (2 GB of RAM, 2x146GB hard disks).MS Windows XP, Active Directory database member, Mimosa software as a client, application server Apache/Tomcat, MySql database
System EPOQUEnet provided by EPO with communication server
Server for Espacenet software (local database):
2xIMB System x3650 M3, 18GB RAM, Dual XEON prosessor Quad core, 6 SAS 300GB disks, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP 1 (64bit) OS, Apache, MySql
IT equipment for EpoqueNet (connection to databases at EPO):
CISCO 2851 VPN router, CISCO Switch Catalyst 2950 12 ports, IBM Xserver 2 GB RAM, 2X 73,4 SAS disks, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP 1

HP P2000 G3 iSCSI MSA Dual Controller LFF storage discs.

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

Patent search in IPAS is available in-house. Very important job in this field started in 2008 and continued in 2009 and that is preparing patent data for Gazette through IPAS, pulling bibliographic data contained in the Gazette in XML St36 format and using it for MIMOSA RS database and also providing the EPO with RS data in order to become accessible through Espacenet.

Databases used for searching by patent examiners internally accessible are: national patent documentation through professional MIMOSA RS, EPOQUENET database of EPO which can be accessed through communication server. In the course of 2013, work was continued on the maintenance of the system EPOQUENet. The system enables search of data base of patent documents that are on the servers of the European Patent Office. The IPO, at the moment, has at its disposal 10 working stations for the search having the installation of the latest version 3.70.01.

Also, for the purpose of data exchange with the EPO database Espacenet, the separate server is installed at the office and in Espacenet complete patent documents with RS country code since 2006 can be found in it, while previous period from 1973 - 2005 have not completely covered yet.

Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file

Published patent applications are scanned on Eposcan and PDF form is available through PubServer and MIMOSA. For preparation and printing registered patents and petty patents different OCR programs are used. Earlier Adobe Fine Reader and now all multifunctional scan/copying machines in the Office have built-in text converters for different types of format (PDF, TIF, GIF etc.). Patent documentation department is in charge for maintenance national patent documentation and check of data for MIMOSA RS. On the day of publication of Gazette the published patent documents are available for searching.

Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)

IPAS is administrative system for patents.

V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION

Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries

The Patent Library has continued to maintain and update the specialized files in paper and CD or DVD with primary and secondary patent documentation. With publishing in Official Gazette, published patent document, previously scanned are published also at Publication server and data are updated in MIMOSA database.
Also in the course of 2013, 783 newly published patent documents were placed in the database MIMOSA RS which are available for online searching through national patent documentation and 3702 patent documents published in period 1973-1975 were uploaded. National patent collection in electronics formats now consists of: 40 701 published patent applications (A, A1, A2, A3), 20933 granted patents and 1 375 petty patents since 1973.
http://www.zis.gov.rs/left/databases.421.html

Publications related to different business procedures and patent information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.

Information on procedures before IPO is available under the link for patents as well as procedures for international protection through PCT and EPC. There are additional electronic publications at the website of IPO and its Education and Information Center: different kind of leaflets, brochures of WIPO - IP for business series, the EPO brochure on searching Espacenet – introduction to the database of ideas is available. These leaflets and brochures in printed version were used primarily for the representation of the Office at the fairs, exhibitions and seminars all over the Serbia. The four EIC Newsletters are issued within 2013 quarterly and delivered to the customers in printed or electronic format.

Office’s initiatives on providing foreign patent information in the local language(s) (e.g., machine translation tools, translation of abstracts)

At the end of 2013, the last group of languages of member countries of the EPO, including the Serbian language, was incorporated in the machine program translator “Patent Translate”, enabling the use of service of the machine translation into the Serbian language of patent documentation available through the data base Espacenet and at the server of published European patent documents (around 70 million patent documents).

Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.

IPO has a close cooperation with the Technology Transfer Office of Belgrade University and during 2013 had 13 meetings with the representatives from its faculties and within activities of Education and information center had 22 seminars for the faculties and institutes which are the part of universities. Topics covered for this target group were mostly patent procedures, patent application drafting, searching patent documentation and ownership on patents.

Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.

In the framework of activities of education and getting various target groups acquainted with the importance and manners of protecting intellectual property rights, as well as the best methods of their utilization, in 2013, 78 seminars and various informative events were held with 1841 participants. The number of participants and events in the framework of the activities of the Centre for Education and Information (EIC) is as follows in the area of patents and patent information: 2 seminars for inventors with 42 participants, 4 seminars for institutes with 124 participants, 18 seminars for faculties with 686 participants. Also EIC organized representation of IPO at 9 trade, science and inventor's fairs and within three of them gave lectures:

IPO had a stand at the following fairs:
- Science is not a bogeyman, Nis March 2013
- International Agricultural fair in Novi Sad, May 2013
- INOCOOP Fair of entrepreneurship in Zrenjanin - August 2013
- TESLA FEST in Novi Sad -the biggest inventor's exhibition in Serbia, October 2013
- Trade fair in Nova Pazova, October 2013
- Trade fair in Paracin, October 2013
- Business database fair in Belgrade, November 2013

VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION

International exchange and sharing of patent information in machine-readable form, e.g., priority documents, bibliographic data, abstracts, search reports, full text information

The Office is still receiving some foreign patent documents on CD and DVD, but number of countries is decreasing due to the switch to the free database through internet. IPO Serbia still receives them from NIPO of AT, RU and SI.
Official bulletins and Annual reports of foreign offices are received from time to time in paper or on electronically carriers.

Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information

- Obtaining bilingual technical literature to EPO for the purpose of introduction of Serbian language in Patent translate of Espacenet
- IPO IT staff participated in the establishing platform for exchange of national data on EP validation for European Federated register. One EPO conference on the topic was organized in Serbia at the second half of 2013.

Assistance to developing countries

In the field of patents in 2013 there were several assistance on the basis of bilateral cooperation or through cooperation with EPO to the countries in the region: Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. There were two visits to BiH with the lectures on patent system and patents and universities for wider audience, as well as for examination matters in chemistry for staff of BIH. One mission of examiners from IPO BiH visited Serbian office for one week for exchange of experience.
Within EPO Academy seminar for patent and the search matters one lecture was delivered in Montenegro organized by the EPO and MNE office.

Other activities

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in the course of 2013, selected the IPO as a partner in the realization of the pilot project on the integration of IP rights in the national innovation policy with the aim to give recommendations how to improve this integration process for the sake of encouraging economy development in Serbia. The IPO, in the framework of the mentioned project, organized meetings with the representatives of all institutions in Serbia that give support to the innovation policy, as well as representatives of economy.

VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS