Annual Technical Report on Industrial Design Information Activities in 2016 submitted by the Intellectual Property Office of the Republic of Serbia

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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

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

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

E-filing system for IP rights is fully functional and is improved on the back-office side with common dispatch module in 2016. The general information available on

http://www.zis.gov.rs/registri/e-podnosenje.1113.html ;

the production E-filing website on URL

https://eusluge.zis.gov.rs

System of the e-filing of documents enables to file the applications of industrial design electronically. The receiving of documents and filings for the applications in the procedure and for the registered intellectual property rights are supported as well. Software became operational in May 2016, with the continual work on its improvement.

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

Of the total number of 389 industrial design applications filed in 2016, 282 applications were filed by foreign applicants under the Hague Agreement. Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, while 107 applications were filed directly with the IPO by domestic and foreign applicants (of which 28 were multiple applications, making a total of 192 industrial designs).

Field Industrial Design Applications:

Year   Hague Agreement   National applications  Total

                                            Foreign   Domestic 

2014      -      219                   9            97              325

2015      -      251                  19           86              356

2016     -       282                  16           91              389

The year 2016 saw the registration of 346 industrial designs, of which 251 were, registered in accordance with the Hague Agreement, and 95 on the basis of applications filed directly with the IPO.

Registered Industrial Design Applications:

Year   Hague Agreement   National applications  Total

                                            Foreign   Domestic

2014       -      208                   35            58              301

2015      -       229                   10            48              287

2016       -      251                   13            82              346

Compared to 2015, the number of applications filed directly with the IPO in 2016, increased for 2 (2%). The number of applications filed under the Hague Agreement was 282, which was by 31 more than in 2015 (12%).

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

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide annual report of the Office

http://www.zis.gov.rs/about-us/annual-report.106.html in English

http://www.zis.gov.rs/o-zavodu/godisnji-izvestaji.50.html in Serbian

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

http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/designs/statistics.81.html in English

http://www.zis.gov.rs/prava-is/dizajn/статистика.23.html in Serbian

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

All relevant data considering industrial design protection in Republic of Serbia are on our web site on www.zis.gov.rs . That includes most frequently asked questions, design legislation, guidelines and forms, fees, statistics and reports.

Instructions for drafting industrial design application and for the process of filling are available at the website as well as the examples of formally correct industrial design applications. All forms and guidelines are available at the following link:

http://www.zis.gov.rs/prava-is/dizajn/обрасци-и-упутства.20.html

FAQ on industrial design proceedings:

http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/designs/most-frequently-asked.76.html

E-filing user guide recommends how to prepare the proper documentation for application – all is accessible through link:

 http://www.zis.gov.rs/registri/e-podnosenje.1163.html

E-filing system for IP rights has prepared and started to be functional in April 2016.

National database of industrial designs is on our web site as well.

http://reg.zis.gov.rs/DistinctiveSigns/search.htm?lang=en

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

Application dossiers are not available by the official website of the IP Office. In the future the plan is to develop an electronic Industrial design register, similar to the one we did for trademarks.

Application dossiers are stored in paper form according the application number.

Classification and reclassification activities; classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification

The Intellectual Property Office of Serbia uses the International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification) since 1973. All the documents are classified according to class and subclass of the Locarno Classification. Now the IPO uses and classifies according to the last edition of the Classification.

The classification is used for the novelty examination search, for commercial search and for statistics.

Other activities

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)

Intellectual Property Office of Serbia publishes registered national industrial designs on CD-ROM, 12 times a year.

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. Design are published in the Intellectual Property Gazette contained bibliographical data and graphical presentations or images of the industrial design registrations. The Intellectual Property Gazette, in the part referring to industrial designs, is prepared by means of computer using an IPAS system. The following information and bibliographical data concerning registered domestic and international Industrial Design are published in the Intellectual Property Gazette – registration number, application number, filing date, registration date, date of granted priority right, validity date, information on the holder of title, information about the design has been registered. Industrial designs are published in grayscale technique and color technique.

Since the beginning of 2012 the Intellectual Property Gazette is published only in electronic form in PDF format on the website of the IPO at the following link.

http://www.zis.gov.rs/electronic-publications.462.html

In 2016, from number 2016/6 IP Gazette is published on monthly basis through IPAS

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

All the searches at the Office are computerized. Each working station has fast internet access and industrial design databases are accessible through it. Examiners use national data base of design applications and registered designs and also use IPAS, internal data base which contains more information available through workflow.  Apart from that, industrial design examiners are trained to use International Databases such as Hague Express and DesignView.

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

The information services available to the public through the Office are as follows:

-       Search according to the year of filing of the application,

-       Search according to the applicant,

-       Search according to the holder of rights,

-       Search according to the application number,

-       Search according to the registration number,

-       Search according to classes

-       Search according to the title of the product

-       Combination of the above mentioned

Information on the registered industrial designs in Serbia is available on the site of the Office.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information such as: filing, publication, examination and registration procedures related to industrial designs

http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/designs/most-frequently-asked.76.html in English

http://www.zis.gov.rs/prava-is/dizajn/najcesca-pitanja.18.html in Serbian

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide forms and instructions related to industrial designs

http://www.zis.gov.rs/intellectual-property-rights/designs/forms-and-instructions.86.html  in English

http://www.zis.gov.rs/prava-is/dizajn/обрасци-и-упутства.20.html  in Serbian

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

Legal status information is available in paper form.

Other sources

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

IPAS (Industrial Property Administration System) – acquired from WIPO

Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office

Intranet network of Windows OS working stations, Windows (2003 R2 STD, 2010 R2 STD) based servers (Fujitsu servers, RAID controlled disks, three tiered architecture with Oracle as database server and JAVA application server

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

IPAS server - FujitsuSiemens Primergy TX200 server, 4GB RAM memory, 5x146GB hard disks in RAID 5 configuration, 2 NICs. MS Windows 2003 R2 Server Standard Edition, application software is IPAS (proprietary), database is Oracle.

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

Oracle database, IPAS case management system

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

MySQL database that is regularly updated, periodically, by transferring/converting appropriate dataset from internal Oracle database. Available for external use via hyperlink on IPO web site.

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

Other matters

General information related to industrial design is posted to IPO web site by employees of design group by means of CMS software.

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

Office library is a member of the COBISS system which represents an organizational model of joining libraries into a national information system with shared cataloguing, the COBIB union bibliographic/catalogue database and local bibliographic databases of participating libraries, the COLIB database on libraries, the CONOR authority database, and with a number of other functions. Functioning of the system is preconditioned by the following professional outlines and technological assumptions:

-standardized and shared cataloguing of library materials as well as a uniform management of catalogues and bibliographies,

-adequately skilled cataloguers,

-linking of libraries via computer and communications network.

Each national library information system built on the COBISS platform is co-created by the national COBISS center and the libraries as members of the system.

COBISS (Co-operative Online Bibliographic Systems and Services) is a model of a system representing the platform for the national library information systems in Slovenia, Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Albania. All these systems are interconnected into the COBISS.Net regional network.

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

Various publications related to industrial design such as studies, brochures, newsletters and leaflets are available in paper form or in electronic form on the IPO website http://www.zis.gov.rs/publications.446.html

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

The Education and Information Center was founded in January 2010 with the aim of raising general awareness and developing professional skills in the field of intellectual property.Оffers a whole range of services in the area of intellectual property helping to upgrade Serbia’s innovation capacities, vigorously supporting the development of its economy as one that is competitive, dynamic and knowledge-based. The fundamental principles guiding the EIC in its work are transparency, objectivity, openness and completeness.

Stimulating universities and other public research institutions to be more active in protecting and exploiting IP EIC held 19 seminars for professors, researches and students attended by 683 participants.

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

EIC has developed a range of different type of seminars for different stakeholder groups. Lectures can be tailor made. Also, the IPO is equipped with the modern public library, and the premises for seminars and educational purpose.

http://www.zis.gov.rs/home.334.html

In the framework of activities of education in 2016, over 60 various educative seminars and informative events were organized where 1295 interested persons participated. Training courses were held beside for above mentioned universities and R&D institutions, and for SME support organization and SMEs, for general public etc.

Other activities

On the occasion of the 96 years of the protection of intellectual property in the Republic of Serbia 16^th November 2016, series of manifestations and seminars and promotions were held.

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)

The Office has received gazettes from the following countries: Czech Republic and Belarus in paper and from Bulgaria, Belarus, Slovenia, Russia, China and Ukraine on CDs.

Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to industrial design information

The officials of the IPO participated at the 9th Liaison Meeting on Technical cooperation and 15th Liaison Meeting on Designs in the OHIM.

Assistance to developing countries

There were several visits to Serbian IPO of the experts from countries: Bosnia and Herzegovina Lithuania, Montenegro. In 2016 Romanian experts visited IPO Serbia. Serbian IT staff conducted training and pointed out the experience of IPAS exploitation within Serbian IPO.

Other activities

VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS