SCIT.ATR.PI.2008.BG

Annual Technical Report 2008 on Patent Information Activities submitted by Bulgaria (SCIT/ATR/PI/2008/BG)

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. Evolution of patent activities

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants with respect to the previous year

In 2008, a total of 270 patent applications were filed with the Patent Office. The applications filed by Bulgarian applicants were 250, while those filed by foreign applicants were 20 (14 – through the PCT route and 6 – through national route).
On the year 2008 7 requests for provisional protection on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria for European applications were filed with the Patent Office. The requests for legal protection on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria of European patents were 1443 and 1111 were validated.
In addition, 147 applications for utility models registrations were filed – all of them by Bulgarian applicants, including 10 parallel applications to applications for patents for inventions and 12 applications for patents for inventions and UM which has been transformed into applications for UM registrations.
In 2008, 269 patents for inventions were granted and 158 utility model registrations were registered.
44 applications for Supplementary Protection Certificates were filed with the BPO, whist 27 certificates were issued and 17 were canceled or refused.

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

Compared to the previous year, the number of the applications filled in 2008 increased – by 31 more than in 2007, as well as the number of the requests for provisional protection on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria for European applications.
Here was a decrease by 34,4% on the number of the utility model applications on comparison to those filed on 2007, at the same time there were no applications for utility models filled by foreign applicants, but we should take into consideration the fact that the significant increase on the number of the applications for utility model registration on 2007 resulted mainly from the requests for transformation of applications for patents for utility models and inventions into applications for utility model registration filed with the Office under the amended Law on Patents and Utility Models Registrations in force since November 2006.
In 2008 were validated by 84 EP more than in 2007.

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

http://www1.bpo.bg/images/stories/about_bpo/bpo_statistics07en.pdf

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, distribution and use of primary and secondary sources of patent information

Publishing, printing, copying (main types of publications of the Office in the field of patent information, etc.)

In 2008 the Official Gazette of the BPO was the basic official source of information about all IPRs. 12 issues of the Gazette were issued.

Abstracts of BG patents and utility models registrations
The Gazette is published monthly by the Patent Office of the Republic of Bulgaria and contains English language translations of titles and abstracts with drawings/chemical formulae of published applications and granted patents for inventions and registered utility models. In 2008 12 issues were published.

Both Bulgarian and English versions are available on www.bpo.bg.

The Annual Report 2007 of the Patent Office of the Republic of Bulgaria was published in Bulgarian and English languages and is available on the Office's website.

Statistics in Bulgarian and English languages were published on the Office's website

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of patent information

The Official Gazette of the BPO includes announcements about all IPRs. In the year under review in the Official Gazette were published:
Applications for patents for inventions 168; Granted patents for inventions 269; European patent applications for provisional protection on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria 9; European patents, validated on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria 1058; Applications for Supplementary. protection certificates 18;
Sertificates for Utility Model Registrations 157; Applications for new plant varieties 42 and animal breeds 3; granted certificates for new plant varieties and animal breeds 68.
The Official gazette includes chapters for trademarks (5842 applications and 5688 registered trademarks were published) and for industrial designs (274 applications and 342 registered industrial designs were published).
In N 1 the full list of patent attorneys was published.
Every three mounts the up-dated list of patents in force on the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria was published.
In the Gazette were published the entries in all State Registers and the changes in the legal status of all IPRs, as well as indexes.

Mass storage media used (paper, microforms, optical storage, etc.)

Patent documents were stored on paper, CD/DVD ROMs

Word processing and office automation

In 2008 the descriptions of 288 granted patents for inventions and 188 certificates for utility models registration were issued using Eposcan Tecnique, OCR, Word (MS Office 2003) and Pagemaker.
The Official Gazette in its part for inventions and utility models is available on the office's website in pdf files.

(New) techniques used for the generation of patent information (printing, recording, photocomposing, Optical Character Recognition (OCR), etc.)

For the generation of patent information Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online publication of patent documents and gazettes, and to other primary and secondary sources of patent information, including patent publication servers and download of bulk patent data

http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=167&Itemid=269 - access to the Office's Official Bulletin
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=150 - - access to the Office's Annual Reports
http://www1.bpo.bg/images/stories/about_bpo/bpo_statistics07.pdf - - access to the statistics

III. Matters concerning abstracting, classifying, reclassifying and indexing of technical information contained in patent documents

All applications and granted patents for inventions and Certificates for Utility models registrations were published with abstracts on the first page.
The abstracts and titles were translated to English and were entered into Common Software database on Bulgarian and English languages.
In 2008 the current version of advanced level of IPC was used to classify the new applications and published at present documents.

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

File building

The Central Patent Library has continued to maintain and update the specialized files on paper and CD-ROM.

Updating

Monthly completion of library funds.

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file

The search file for examination consist of PCT minimum patent document: PCT, EP, GB, US, DE, SU (RU), BG.

V. Activities in the field of computerized and other mechanized search systems

In-house systems (online/offline)

EpoqueNET online from 5 PC based Work Stations via Petnet-2.

External databases

All databases were accessible through EpoqueNET.
The most frequently used are:
International Patent Classification vers.8;
ECLA - EPO Classification;
EPODOC - EPO Documentation;
EPOS - EPO Synonyms
EPUS EPO-USPTO Class concordance
EUREG - European Patent Register
NPL - Non Patent Literature
WPI - World Patent Index (Derwent)
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
Common Software, v. 3.3.2. Soprano_CS is in process of implementation in framework of the EPTOS Project (EPTOS v. P6, Soprano_CS v. 4.28.02 in the test mode).

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

Common Software, v. 3.3.2. Soprano_CS is in process of implementation in framework of the EPTOS Project (EPTOS v. P6, Soprano_CS v. 4.28.02 in the test mode).

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used

Common software is running on the same hardware platform, EPTOS as well.

Existing online thesauri; their structure, presentation and usefulness for computerized searches

NIPIES system

VI. Administration of the industrial property office library, and information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, for assisting clients on searching procedures, for obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

Planning, administration, automation, security, buildings

The Central Patent Library and Publications Department is a part of the Information Technologies and Patent Library Directorate.
There are no special requirements for the library use.
There is free access to the library's reading room.

Collecting, acquisitions, preparation

The Central Patent Library (CPL) holds comprehensive collections of domestic and foreign patent documents and other relevant material in the field of the industrial property on different media. In 2008, 2767 paper documents were added to the collections (6364 in 2007), 1023 CD/DVD ROM were added to the electronic ones (922 in 2007) as well as 552 Official bulletins of foreign patent offices and organizations (651 in 2007).
Documentation of CPL consists of:
- BG patent applications laid open for public inspection granted patents for inventions and utility models (utility model certificates - in accordance with the Law on Patents and Utility Models Registration in force as from 09.11.2006) on paper (since 1953) and on electronic media - ESPACE PRECES series for granted patents (since 1992) and on DVD -facsimile copies (1953-1992);
- EP translations (validated European patents designating BG) - T3 publications - since 2004;
- more than 25 million patent documents from 30 countries and two international organizations (EPO and WIPO) stored according to the IPC classes along with a numerical collection comprising more than 4000 documents on microfilm;
- patents'/utility models' full text collections on CD/DVD and "access" discs from 28 countries and two international organizations (EPO and WIPO);
- full set of the Official Gazette of the Patent Office since 1955 as well as the Official gazettes and indexes of the patent offices of 40 countries and three international organizations (EPO, WIPO and OHIM) – on paper and electronic format;
- the eight editions of the IPC and the subject-matter indexes;
- specialized theoretical literature, including the newest titles in IP field - laws, reference books, guides, books, periodicals/IP magazines etc. 178 new titles were added (149 in 2007).
The CPL provides electronic access to the BG images documents (from No 16 598 - since 1973) available via EPO esp@cenet service and to the bibliographic data of all national patent applications and patents granted along with the European applications designating Bulgaria and European patents validated in the territory of Bulgaria available via the Office's internal network.
The acquisition of patent documents (on paper and electronic media) is based on the mutual exchange of patent documents between the member states of the Paris Convention.

Collection management, preservation

The paper collections are stored according to the IPC classes and countries of origin. The electronic collections are numerical. All the documents can be used on request in the library’s reading room.

Interlibrary lending, resource sharing, networks of patent libraries in the country

In the framework of the Bulgarian Industrial Property Network (BIPN) which embraces the university IPPoints (established mainly within the respective university libraries) and the regional PATLIB centres, the Patent Office is providing on a regular basis its Official Bulletin, Annual Reports and the discs of the series ESPACE-ACCESS PRECES including patents bibliography from the Region of Central and Eastern European States and TRACES (TRAdemarks from the region of Central and Eastern European States) including complete (text and image) information on the trademarks registered in Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia as well as different brochures, books, booklets and other information material in the field of industrial property published by the Patent Office.

Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and patent information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)

The Client Service Facility in the library's reading room consists of 4 computerized working places for consulting and printing patent documents stored on CD/DVD-ROMs and available in the specialized patent databases in Internet.
Services provided at the Office's patent library - mainly free of charge:
- Provision of all kind of documents (patent specifications and official gazettes on different media, classifications, periodicals, theoretical literature etc.) in the reading room;
- Provision of information on the classification systems, legislation (national and foreign), international organisations and treaties, application and grant procedures, legal status, IP representatives and fees;
- Assisted searches for all IP rights in different IP resources, including internet databases of EPO, WIPO and the national patent offices (some of the automated searches are subject to payment in accordance with the official Price list of the Patent Office;
- Consultations in the field of patent information and documentation and on how to use them;
- Provision of hard copies of all kind of documents - chargeable in accordance with the official Price list of the Patent Office.
Paid services (on request) - chargeable in accordance with the Price list of the Patent Office:
- Infringement search for patent rights in Bulgaria
- Subject search
- Prior art search
- Patents family search
- Name search
- Legal status search
- Patent family search
- Number search
- Drawing up of preliminary expert opinion on infringement of patent rights
- Information on patent procedures in foreign countries
- Issuance of different types of certificates
- Copies of documents
Services provided under the Special Search Programme - chargeable according to the Tariff of Fees for the provision of paid services in the patent searches field:
- Novelty search
- Patentability search
- State of the art search
- Search prior to raising objections against the patentability of the invention applied for, patent invalidation request (except for patents granted by the Patent Office of the Republic of Bulgaria), or a request for cancellation of utility model registration
- Freedom to operate search in the territory of the Republic of Bulgaria
- Searches in the national database - by name, number, IPC classes, legal status incl. licenses pledges, distraints and inclusion in the bankrupts estate
- Searches in foreign databases: by name, number, IPC
- Patent family searches
- Monitoring of predetermined technology fields
The total number of searches in the field of inventions and utility models in 2008 was 749 (526 in 2007).

URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of patent applications

none

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and grant procedures related to patents; opposition and appeal procedures related to patents; etc.

http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=115&Itemid=356 - national procedures
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=149&Itemid=357 - official forms to be used before the Patent Office
http://www1.bpo.bg/images/stories/patents/ep_general_info.pdf - European applications - procedure
http://www1.bpo.bg/images/stories/patents/pct_general_info.pdf - PCT applications - procedure
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=121&Itemid=359 – IPC 7-th and 8-th editions

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., patent search service(s) and patent databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=202&Itemid=292⟨=bg - information services and products
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=20&Itemid=43 - databases

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of patent documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., bibliographic data, abstract and/or full text information

The Official Gazette was monthly distributed to 85 Bulgarian and 47 foreign subscribers (in 39 countries).
The bibliographic titles and abstracts, translated in English, for all patent applications, granted patents and utility model registrations, published in the Official Gazette from N 1 to N12 2008, has been sent to INPADOC-EPIDOS- Vienna and to the European Patent Office Branch in the Hague to be integrated in BG esp@cenet server.
108 patent descriptions were processed and sent to Hungary to be integrated in the CD-ROM-ESPACE-PRECES collection.
The Annual Report for the year 2007 was published in Bulgarian and English language and was sent to 57 foreign offices and organizations and to 32 ministries, agencies, universities, Patlib centres/IP-points. The annual statistics on all IPRs administrated by the BPO were prepared and sent to WIPO and EPO.

Medium used for exchange of priority documents

On paper

Medium allowed for filing applications

On paper

VIII. Other relevant matters concerning education and training in, and promotion of, the use of patent information, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)

Training courses for national and foreign participants, use of audiovisual means

In 2008, training in the field of the industrial property – Basic knowledge, was provided to representatives of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences;
Individual training of the staff of the university IPPoints on the use of the IP information and documentation, incl. electronic and internet data bases.

Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)

In 2008 a range of seminars, round tables, meetings and other events were run by the Patent Office, single-handed or in cooperation with other national/international institutions, among which:
Seminar with representatives of the court on the General issues and problems in IPRs enforcement;
Roving seminar on the IP knowledge dissemination in the universities;
Seminar on how to avoid the infringements and how to protect our own IPRs;
International Symposium on the Enforcement of the IPRs jointly organized with WIPO and USPTO;
Round table organised at the Industrial Centre in Varna on the IPRs enforcement;
Presentation on the IP knowledge dissemination given within the European Entrepreneur Day;
To promote the Open Doors Day was organized at the Patent Office in Sofia and its regional branch in Varna – the Industrial Property Centre, in the framework of which information and practical consultations were provided to the visitors.
As part of the preparations to host the annual conference of the PATLIB centres in Europe – PATLIB2009, the Patent Office took part with a stand in the exhibition of information products within PATLIB2008 held in Warsaw, Poland.
Advertising of the Patent Office activity and industrial property system in different media – electronic, websites.
URLs:
Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.):
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=434&Itemid=386 - e-learning
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=437&Itemid=387 - courses, seminars and conferences
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=103&Itemid=272 - forthcoming events

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 patents

National legislation
Bulgarian Law on patents and UM registrations is available on
http://www1.bpo.bg/images/stories/laws/paten_and_ums_law07.pdf
International Conventions and Agreements
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=80&Itemid=127

contain the Annual Report of the Office

contain the Annual Report of the Office
http://www1.bpo.bg/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=23&Itemid=150

X. Other relevant matters