Annual Technical Report 2011 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by Slovakia (CWS/ATR/ID/2011/SK)
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. Evolution of registration activities
Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to the previous year
108 applications for industrial designs were filed with the Office in 2011. It is 14.9 per cent more than in 2010.
The most active foreign applicants were from the Czech Republic (7) and Sweden (3). Slovak applicants filed 96 applications (increase by 26.3 per cent). The share of domestic applications was 88.9 per cent.
73 designs were registered in 2011, that is 6.4 per cent less than in 2010.
On December 31, 2011 there were 1,030 valid national designs.
For comparison there is statistics on design applications and registrations of the years 2005 - 2011:
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to industrial designs
URL to Annual Technical Reports on Designs:
http://www.upv.sk/?vyrocne-technicke-spravy
http://www.wipo.int/cws/en/atrs/
URL to Annual reports of the IPO SR:
http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of industrial design documents and of secondary sources of industrial design information, i.e., official gazettes
Publishing, including printing, copying techniques and electronic printing
Publication of industrial designs
The Office publishes registered industrial designs in the Official Gazette.
Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR"
Industrial design information forms part of the Official Gazette - "Vestník ÚPV SR", covering all industrial property rights in one publication. IPO SR publishes official version of the Official Gazette in electronic form on CD ROM in PDF format. In 2011 the Gazette had a circulation of 130 copies, of which 44 were distributed monthly by subscription. Other copies were sent free of charge to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO SR, to information and consulting sites INNOINFO, within the frame of industrial property information exchange to foreign offices and as statutory copies according to the act as well. In 2011 the Office ceased the publication of online version of the Gazette in the Internet. It was replaced by its electronic version in PDF format, which is available via Internet address http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky.
Within international exchange the Official Gazette was distributed into 30 countries including EPO and WIPO.
The following numbers of industrial designs were published in the Official Gazette 2011:
86 registered industrial designs
90 registered industrial designs with the extended term of validity
MS Office 2003, FineReader 10.0, Adobe Acrobat 10 Professional SK, Quark Xpress Passport 7.5, Corel Draw 11, Adobe InDesign Standard CS5, Photoshop CS5.5, EPSON Scan 3.74 SK are being used for text processing, photocomposing and printing.
SLEX99 - Lexicon of Slovak Language contains following parts: Short Dictionary of Slovak Language, Slovak Dictionary of Synonyms, Rules of Slovak Grammar, used for the data processing. The photocomposing and printing is carried out by the Office.
The Desk-Top Publishing technology is being used for data and image inputs processing, for the Gazette and first pages of the design documents.
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of industrial design information
The Gazette contains industrial design announcements arranged in following main chapters:
-list of registered industrial designs (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered industrial designs (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-list of registered industrial designs with extended term of validity (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered industrial designs with extended term of validity (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-list of registered industrial designs with postponed publishing (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of registered industrial designs with postponed publishing (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-list of published registered industrial designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (numerical series with classification symbols)
-bibliographic data of published registered industrial designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
-official decisions (lapse (expiration), etc.)
-assignments and transfers of rights and other changes of owners
-cancellation of industrial designs registration
-partial cancellation of industrial designs registration
-registration of licensing contracts
-termination of licensing contracts
-right of lien
-corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online industrial design gazettes and to other sources of industrial design information, including download of bulk industrial design data
ON-LINE DATABASES
http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its homepage.
National databases are:
-"Data extracted from Registers" also called as "Webregisters", gives public access to information from national registers of industrial property rights and are updated daily http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=en
-"Classification Systems" http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia contains classifications used in Slovakia and abroad:
"Design Classifications" contains Slovak version of 9 th edition of Locarno Classification (fully searchable), links to other classifications systems for classifying designs used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia-dizajny
-Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR" may be viewed on the address http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette - each issue is available as a one PDF file containing the whole issue. At the same time it is divided into PDF files containing only selected parts of the gazette, e.g.: patents, designs, trademarks or official announcements. In the archive on this webpage are available the previous volumes also in PDF format. The older volumes are gradually being added.
In the part "Foreign on-line databases" there are links to the most frequently used on-line databases http://www.upv.sk/?zahranicne-online-databazy#dizajny.
ON-LINE ORDERS
http://www.upv.sk/?online-orders
The IPO SR provides electronic order forms for Official Gazette, magazine Intellectual Property and E-zine, expert publications of the IPO SR and IPO CZ, Annual Reports, patent documents and searches (see the part „Products and Services", chapter VI).
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied
Classification and reclassification activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification (please indicate whether industrial designs are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)
The current version of the International Classification for Industrial Design (Locarno Classification) is used for classifying of industrial designs, which are classified by Office´s experts.
Bibliographic data and processing
The WIPO Standard ST.80 is used for industrial design bibliographic data coding in all relevant outcomes or records. All bibliographic data are being processed in electronic database form. The fully searchable data are updated and made available to the public daily in the Internet.
IV. Search file establishment and upkeep
File building
Industrial design search file of the Office comprises the industrial design collection of the Slovak Republic and also former Czechoslovak Republic. The IPO SR built in 2011 the manual industrial design search system in the card catalogue form, arranged according to international industrial design classification, updated regularly.
Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file
In 2011, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR received industrial design gazettes, as a part of the available search files, from the following states and organisations: Armenia, Bulgaria, Benelux, Czech Republic, Estonia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Ukraine, USA and EPO a WIPO.
V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs
In-house systems (online/offline)
The online industrial design database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national industrial design searches and purposes of proceedings on industrial design applications. Selected register data are available to the public in the Internet.
It is possible to carry out searches according to bibliographic data in all the databases used for industrial designs.
External databases
Internet databases in particular:
Registered industrial designs database of the IPO CZ
WIPO International Design Bulletin
OHIM Industrial Designs Database
Hague Express Database
National databases USPTO and IPOUK
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
The Office automation management system contains industrial designs register (data since 1991) using “INVENTIO” software.
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), data carriers used
Equipment used:
LAN is built on base of the Cisco technology, Fast ETHERNET 1000/100/10 Mbit/s, WINDOWS 2003 / 2008 Server; MS SQL Server 2005 / 2008; workstations PC Pentium, Windows XP / 7, thin client WYSE V10, WYSE S10, HP t5740.
Linux Red Hat Enterprise 4.0,
Informix Dynamic Server 10,
Citrix XenApp 5.0 FP3,
Ultranet – Ultra Console 2000
SAN HP MSA 1500 CS, SAN HP MSA P2000, G3
HP Storage Works MSL SDLT 5026 series library, MSL LTO 4048,
HP open view Storage Data Protector version A.06.11
VI. Administration of industrial design information products and 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)
Planning, administration, automation, security
In 2011, the Office's reading room has been visited by 1 338 users and 1 311 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6 412 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 23 006 copies of patent documents and other industrial property documents for the manual and computer search purposes, as well as copies from technical periodicals and other associated and non-patent literature were made. In 2011 there were performed 23 design searches and 40 searches on bibliographic data.
The Office's reading room serves as a WIPO deposit library as well. The deposit library fund includes 142 volumes of publications issued by WIPO, which are available for study in reading room.
The Office's reading room including the search workstation opens daily from 8:00 to 15:00.
All online services and other basic information are available via Internet address of IPO SR www.upv.sk.
Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and industrial design information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)
The Office library provides following services to the public:
-general information - provided by Office’s experts
-lending service (Official Gazettes, special monographs and reference literature) in the reading room
-sale of special monographs and periodical publications (“Intellectual Property” in paper, Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR” on CD-ROM) upon request or on the place
-reprographic services upon request or on the place
-on-line searches in Office’s search system, self-service during a personal visit
-searches upon request - orders in written and online form
-registry information provided in the reading room
-CD-ROM workstations available in the reading room
Industrial design information on the World Wide Web:
-general information
-information about Office activities (seminars, training courses, etc.)
-application guide and forms
-administrative fees
-relevant laws
-Annual Reports
-extracted data from register
-Official Gazette
-order forms (searches, Official Gazette, special literature)
-Locarno Classification (9-th edition)
-design classifications and related information
-annual technical reports on design information (2002-2011)
Patent Information Centres and Contact and Information Points
Since 2003 the Office has established 10 contact and information points, while four of them are the Patent Information Centres. They are located in state, regional and district libraries as well as in the Slovak National Library in Martin and Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava. A list of centres and points is available on the Office’s web site http://www.upv.sk/?partners. (For more information see the annual technical report on patent information.)
The co-operation with patent information centres and contact and information points within the PATLIB network continued also in 2011. Representatives of centres participated at the conference organised by the Office in April on the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day and at two-day meeting of the Office’s electronic services users in May. Moreover representatives of centres acting in CVTI SR Bratislava and SNK Martin participated at the conference PATLIB, which took place in the Hague.
The European Patent Office included the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava in the pilot project of re-orientation of PATLIB centres. The goal of the project is introduction of new innovative and supporting services and co-operation with regional organisations to support innovations. In 2011 the PATLIB centre in CVTI continued in activities of EPO pilot project.
Information and Advisory Points for Innovations (InnoInfo)
The mission of InnoInfo centres http://www.upv.sk/?information-and-advisory-points-for-innovation-innoinfo operating in the regions of Slovakia is to orientate especially the small and medium sized entrepreneurs in the field of innovations and industrial property. InnoInfo centres are established in business incubators, regional consultancy and information centres, regional chambers of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at the Universities of technical orientation.
Co-operation with InnoInfo centres continued also in 2011 particularly in the field of education and seminar organisation. The seminar “Technology Transfer and Intellectual Property Protection” took place in the premises of University Technology Incubator in Bratislava in the end of January. Local entrepreneurs and representatives of institutions for science and research support met at the two-day event Intellectual Property Protection in Prešov in May. The topic of September seminar organized by Regional Advisory and Information Centre in Prešov was Monitoring Technology and Competitiveness through Patent and Trademark databases. The Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry in Trenčín organised the Brokerage Event ELO SYS 2011 in October and in November co-organised the seminar on innovations financing possibilities for small and medium enterprises.
Information Centre
Within their professional consultancy activities, the Centre staff provides the public with the necessary IPR-related information personally, by telephone (+421 48 4300 131), mail or e-mail infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk or by fax. The Information Centre includes also “Helpdesk” providing information about electronic on-line filing.
Information Centre provided totally 7 115 information in 2011. 5 545 information was provided by the telephone, 304 information was provided personally, 1 067 by e-mail, 197 by post. 1605 information thereof concerned registry data, 911 were of general nature, 449 related to fees and 622 information concerned patents, 247 utility models and 17 supplementary protection certificates as such. Information Centre was moved to the premises freely accessible to public in order to improve the accessibility particularly in handling with personal consultations with the Office visitors. Concurrently the processes for services providing were optimised by joining the Information Centre to department providing search and consultation services related to industrial and legal information.
Workplace of the IPO SR in Bratislava
Workplace of the Office, which was opened in 2004 offered information relating to filing applications for industrial property rights subjects last year. In the workplace, there is a filing room.
Pre-diagnostics of industrial property rights
http://www.upv.sk/?prediagnostika-priemyselnych-prav
To increase the industrial property awareness, to support innovations, creativity and competitiveness of small and medium enterprises are the primary goals of industrial rights pre-diagnostics performed by the IPO SR experts since 2008. During 2011 the Office employees visited 49 companies from all Slovakia. Although filing applications is not the primary goal of the pre-diagnostics totally 105 applications in 4 year were received since introduction this service.
URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of industrial design applications
The Office's on-line filing room enables filing of the European patent applications, international PCT patent applications and national patent and utility model applications including subsequently filed documents relating to proceedings on patent applications, utility model applications and applications for translations of patent claims of European patent applications and of European patent specifications with designation for SK in electronic form http://www.upv.sk/?electronic-filing-of-applications.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and registration procedures related to industrial designs; opposition and appeal procedures related to industrial designs; etc.
Webregisters
http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its homepage. Most frequently used databases are "Data extracted from Registers" also called as "Webregisters". Webregisters give public access to data extracted from design register, which is kept by the Office with the possibility of simple and advanced search or browsing results. Data concerning in particular pending design applications, all filed applications or registered designs in the register are daily updated.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., industrial design search service(s) and industrial design databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them
Products and services
URL addresses providing basic information concerning the information services offered and information products issued by the Office and other relevant information relating to their accession and utilization
-Official Gazette http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette
-magazine "Intellectual Property" http://www.upv.sk/?dusevne-vlastnictvo
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
-IPO SR and IPO CZ publications http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
-E-zine IPO SR http://www.upv.sk/?e-zine-upv-sr
-on-line order forms http://www.upv.sk/?online-orders
-price list http://www.upv.sk/swift_data/source/pdf/Cennik.pdf
-data extracted from register http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
-IPO SR reading room http://www.upv.sk/?other-services
-searches http://www.upv.sk/?searches
Information services offered by the Office, see the part "Information services available to the public", chapter VI.
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information
International or regional cooperation in the exchange of industrial design information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes
In 2011 followed the mutual exchange of industrial design information in the form of official gazettes between the IPO SR and other offices also international organizations, including the WIPO.
Exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., data contained on CD-ROM or magnetic tape
The IPO SR received from JPO registered industrial designs and from USPTO granted design patents stored on CD-ROM in the past year.
VIII. Matters concerning education and training, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)
Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)
World Intellectual Property Day
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?ipo-sr-activities-for-smes
The IPO SR employees and invited guests, including the Vice-President of the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market Christian Archambeau, celebrated the World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD) on April 27, 2011. Its central idea was Designing the Future. The Opening was preceded by Ceremonial granting the Patent Instrument to the University of Žilina in Žilina; the document related to the 10,000th patent granted by the Office. Working part of the WIPD 2011 at the IPO SR consisted of the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia XI. It was aimed at issues of public relations and related marketing tools to reach more effective communication with target groups. April 27, 2011 was also the Open Day at the Office for everybody who wanted to obtain the information on intellectual property issues and on Office’s activities.
International Seminars
In December 6, 2011 the IPO SR organised in co-operation with the World Intellectual Property Organization the Seminar Strategic Use of Trademarks for Business Development. More than 50 participants from all Slovakia – patent attorneys, small and medium enterprises or universities representatives – attended the Seminar. In December 20 – 21, 2011 the Regional Meeting of Experts on Traditional Knowledge Issues in Transitional Economy Countries was organised in Košice by the Office in co-operation with the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice.
Co-operation with Universities
The Office in co-operation with the Technical University of Košice (TUKE) and the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) organised in the premises of University Library of TUKE the 3rd year of the Conference Intellectual Property Protection at Universities on November 10. The Conference was aimed particularly at expert public such as Universities scientific and pedagogic employees, students of technical, natural and also humane sciences; more than 70 participants, particularly from Košice Universities, took part in the Conference. Also co-operation with the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica related to preparation of expert seminar in the premises of the Faculty of Economy in Banská Bystrica (15.4. and 29.4.2011) within the Project Module 6 Intellectual Property Protection on the base of the Co-operation Agreement between MBU and IPO SR.
New portal - WWW.PATENTOVAT.SK
In the beginning of April 2011 the Industrial Property Office of SR in its effort to increase the public awareness on intellectual property importance and protection made a new internet portal – www.patentovat.sk – available. The portal is for public. Its goal is to popularise intellectual property and to provide information on industrial property protection and related services and products of the Office.
Editorial Activities
The Office publishes classifications, collections, expert monographs, acts and related commentaries, promotional and information brochures, leaflets or translations of WIPO and EPO original publications providing valuable information on industrial property field to public. The major popularisation activities of the Office last year included:
- Annual Report of the Industrial Property Office of SR, for the first time in electronic and web;
- The Collection from the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia XI, (CD);
- The Collection from the Conference Intellectual Property Protection at Universities III (CD);
- Regulations on Industrial Property Protection in SR, 5th edition;
- The Magazine Intellectual Property, in colour, web version with quarterly delay;
- Publication Value Exchange;
- Publication At Home with Inventions;
- Information brochures:
Making a Trademark
Looking Good
Learn from the History, Create the Future
Your Own World of Intellectual Property
Poster (10 Deadly Sins of Inventor – WIPO)
Bookmark – www.patentovat.sk
Exhibitions
The Office in its premises opened the exhibition FAIRPLAY DESIGN (studio: Industrial Design: Ferdinand Chrenka and his students; AFAD Bratislava) on the occasion of the WIPD. The Industrial Property Office has worked on events Researchers Night 2011, which took place simultaneously in several cities in Slovakia. The Office also participated in 63rd International Trade Fair Ideas – Inventions – New Products IENA 2011 in German Nuremberg in the common stand of patent offices “Internationales Patent-Informationszentrum”.
Training courses for national and foreign participants
Intellectual Property Course
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?education
IPO SR continued the education programme Intellectual Property accredited by the Ministry of Education of the SR also last year. From September 2010 to May 2011 the Modules:
A – Basics of Intellectual Property Rights and Copyright,
B – Creativity, its Management, Marketing and Economy, and
C – Information on Intellectual Property, were running.
22 graduates finished the Modules in June 2011. 25 participants entered the education programme from September 2011; 19 participants are external and 6 internal. This proves that the interest of public in education in intellectual property protection area has been increasing permanently. Final theses of graduates are available in the Office’s reading room as study materials for public.
IX.Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:
provide information on legislation related to industrial designs
-legislation in force http://www.upv.sk/?legislation-in-force
-related legislation http://www.upv.sk/?related-legislation
-invalid legislation http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?neplatne-pravne-predpisy
-multilateral treaties http://www.upv.sk/?multilateral-treaties
-EU legislation http://www.upv.sk/?eu-legislation
contain the Annual Report of the Office
http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports
if necessary, provide further information related to the topics referred to in the current ATR
Information relating to subjects of industrial property rights
Office's Web page contains basic information which are useful for the applicant by filing the application of particular type of industrial property right, such as application forms, legislation, instructions of the IPO SR, information for applicant, administrative fees, contact to expert assistance, etc.:
Patents http://www.upv.sk/?Patents
SPC http://www.upv.sk/?supplementary-protection-certificates
Utility models http://www.upv.sk/?utility-models
Designs http://www.upv.sk/?designs
Topographies http://www.upv.sk/?topographies-of-semiconductor-products
Trademarks http://www.upv.sk/?trademarks
Geographical indications http://www.upv.sk/?designation-of-origin-and-geographical-indications
contain industrial design-related news regarding the Office
http://www.upv.sk
X. Other relevant matters