Annual Technical Report 2003 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by The former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (SCIT/ATR/ID/2003/MK)
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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. Evolution of registration activities
In the course of the 2003, 653 applications for industrial designs were filed to the State Office for Industrial Property. Considering the structure of the industrial design applications filed to the State Office, the domestic applications have increased by 55,2% while the foregin applications have increased by 116,7%. Of the total number of foreign applications for industrial designs in 2003, Switzerland holds the utmost part of 281 applications and the participation of 46,2,0%, followed by Germany with 152 applications or 25,0%, then France with 78 applications or 12,9%, Italy with 22 applications or 3,6%, Bulgaria with 19 applications or 3,1%, while the rest of the countries participate with 56 applications or 9,2%.
During 2003, the State Office for Industrial Property registered a total of 621 industrial designs, out of which 34 were domestic, 11 foreign industrial designs and 582 foreign industrial designs registered for the territory of the Republic of Macedonia. The total number of registered industrial designs in the said year was reduced by 1,9%, which is due to the reduced number of internationally registered industrial designs. Most of the domestic registered industrial designs belong equally to the classes 25 and 9 (23,1%) which refers to construction and constructive elements, and packaging and transport containers for the transportation of goods. For the foreign, the highest position belongs to the industrial designs of class 10 (245 applications or 42,1%) which refers to the clocks and watches and other measuring instruments, checking and signalling instruments, followed by class 9 (44 or 7,6%) related to packaging and transport containers.
During the year 2003, intensive work has been put into the Law Changes and Additions to the Law on Industrial Property (Official Gazette of the Republic of Macedonia no. 47/02 and 42/03), which was enacted in June 2002 and became effective starting from the 1st of July 2003 or 1st of January 2004, as well as the preparation of the bylaws derived from the main law.
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of industrial design documents and of secondary sources of industrial design information, i.e., official gazettes
The State Office of Industrial Property of the Republic of Macedonia issues the official gazette “Glasnik”. The Gazette is issued four times yearly, every three months. This official gazette contains data concerning recognized industrial designs and information regarding other activities of the Office, in the country and abroad. There are very often commentaries of actual activities in protection of the industrial property rights. The Office issues Annual Report for its activities in the former year. In this Report there is basic data for industrial designs.
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied
Industrial designs are classified according to the International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification, Eighth Edition).
WIPO Standard ST.80 is used for bibliographic data coding.
IV. Search file establishment and upkeep
Industrial design files are kept in paper form in the library, and they are updated continuously.
There is industrial design data (in electronic format) of applied and registered industrial designs, but pending the implementation of an in-house system, the research is still done manually.
V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs
In the field of computerization several activities were taken during the 2003:
- In-house systems:
For the period of this year there was no global in-house system in place yet, but towards the end of the year the Office, in cooperation with WIPO, started an implementation of the IPAS Software which is planned to gradually encompass all three major IP domains beginning with Trademarks and Patents and finally Industrial Designs too.
- External databases:
Esp@cenet
- Administrative management systems:
Electronic register of published industrial designs
- Hardware:
- 100 Mbit/per seat switched Ethernet network
- Xylan switches (48 ports)
- Motorola Vanguard router
- 26 Celeron 430 MHz (or higher), 128 MB RAM, 4,3 (or higher) GB HDD PCs and 17” monitors
- 1 application server with dual PII 400 MHz, 320 MB RAM, and 9GB SCSCI HDD
- Pairgain modem 64 Kbit-2Mbit
- Windows 2000 Professional as a platform deployed on more than 80% of the computers with a few Windows NT and Windows XP Professionals.
- Windows 98 where hardware requirements for Windows NT are not met
- Windows NT server
- Towards the end of the year an Oracle Server was obtained to serve as the basis for the implementation of the IPAS Software.
VI. Administration of industrial design services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering designs, assisting clients with search procedures, obtaining official publications and registry extracts)
The Office library has industrial design data from the bulletins for international registration of industrial designs through Hague Agreement concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, which are supplied by WIPO, on CD-ROM, as well as industrial design data supplied by exchange of official gazettes with Slovenia, Poland, FR Yugoslavia, Croatia, Moldova, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Romania, Estonia, Germany, etc., which are available to all interested persons.
The Office did not provide computerized searches in the industrial designs database.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information
The Office sends and receives gazettes in paper form. The official gazettes, as well as the Annual Report are distributed to the next countries: AR, AZ, AU,YU, HR, SI, BG, CZ, PL, DE, SE, TR, AT, AL, BA, BY, BR, BX, BE, CA, CY, RO, IT, IL, LV, LU, LT, KR, FR, HU, CH, UA, GB, GR, GE, US, JP, PT, KP, RU, SK, SM, EG, EE, ES, MD and FI. The Office is receiving gazettes and annual reports from the next countries: AT, BG, ES, EE, BA, BY, DE, MD, LT, PL, HU, UA, FI, CZ, RO, RU, SK, JP, YU, HR and SI.
VIII. Matters concerning education and training including technical assistance to developing countries
WIPO
Working group on the establishement of new regulations under the Hague Agreement concerning the international registration of industrial designs, was attended in Geneva, June 24 to 27, 2003.
CARDS
Within the framework of the regional CARDS program (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilization) of the European Commission a number of introductionary seminars were included for program and targets of this project.