Annual Technical Report on Patent Information Activities in 2024 submitted by Intellectual Property Office/Republic of Serbia

Please provide links to your website where the requested information can be found in English, French, or Spanish.  Alternately, you may provide text responses instead of URLs if desired.  If the information is not available on your website in an ATR language, then please provide text.

URLs in responses should meet the following requirements:

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

Information on the following topics is desired:

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

In 2024 IPO Serbia continued to maintain its electronic services. The whole system uses data from IPAS administration system (patents, trademarks, industrial design), as well as separate databases for GI and Copyright:

• e-Registers for: Patents, Petty patents, SPC, Trademarks, Industrial design (connected to IPAS)
• Evidence of deposited copyright and related right works
• e-register of geographical indication of origin
• e-Filling
• e-Delivery

e-Filling – system consists of application and submission modules:

• Application for protection of invention with submodules for: patent, petty patent, SPC, EP validation and e-PCT application for international protection of invention
• Application for trademarks protection including submodules for: individual trademark, collective trademark and warranty trademark
• Application for industrial design with submodules for individual and multiple design applications
• Different modules for submitting submissions in the administrative procedures grouped in 10 groups with 70 electronic forms:
  1. Pre-application search, two forms for patent and trademark commercial searches
  2. Procedure upon submission of an application (17 forms)
  3. Procedure for international registration of trademark and industrial design (4 forms)
  4. Entries of changes into registers (12 forms)
  5. Cancellation of trademark and termination due to non-use (4 forms)
  6. Complaint request (1 form)
  7. Extracts from registers and certificates (5 forms)
  8. Other requests and submissions (12 forms)
  9. Fees (9 forms)
  10. Submissions of Collective management Organizations (14 forms)

Prerequisite for using e-Filing system for most of the actions in e-Filling system is possession of electronic signature certificates issued by certification bodies in Serbia.

In 2024 IPO RS received altogether 9480 applications for intellectual property rights, of which 4773 are applications for intellectual property rights in national proceedings. 4206 applications out of 4773 are for industrial property rights. 79.3% are received through e-Filling system, and share of other submissions through e-Filling was 63%.

E- delivery has been established in July 2020. It represents an electronic delivery of e-documents issued by the IPO, with its e-signature. The documents are being sent directly from our IPAS (Industrial Property Administration System) to the e-Mailbox within our governmental portal eUprava. Mainly is meant for representatives of our filed applications, but intention is to include as many applicants/owners of the rights, as possible. E-delivery was used for 30.3% of all Office’s delivered documents.

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

IPO customized and tested WIPO Publish program for the online publication of all industrial property files.
IPO maintained IPCPub platform in order to publish new IPC versions, which are translated in the WIPO IPCR online system

Quality management system according to the standard ISO 9001 which includes patent grant, petty patent grant and trademark grant processes has been implemented at the IPO since 2011and continues to provide constant level of quality of services provided by the Office. In November 2024, another recertification audit was successfully conducted in compliance with ISO9001:2015 standards. User satisfaction is regularly assessed through electronic survey among users and the survey results show that Overall impression in patent grant procedure is 87.5% of very satisfied/satisfied users, in a petty patent grant procedure 100% of very satisfied users, and 97.67% of very satisfied/satisfied users in trademark grant procedure. 

Continuation of the data exchange with the EPO: published patent data sharing and maintenance of the EP federated register service.

IPO established the regular patent data exchange with the WIPO PATENTSCOPE, providing full text of published patent documents and procedural updates regarding national phase of the PCT patents.

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

In 2024 IPO Serbia received 1461 patent applications, of which 151 in national proceedings including 13 foreign applicants, and 1310 European patent validation requests. IPO received in 2024 61 petty patent applications (of which 5 filed by foreign applicants) and 11 SPC applications.

As of December 31, 2024, the Patent register in Serbia contained 8544 granted patents in force (↓5,1%), of which 326 patents were registered through national procedure and 8218 were validated European patents. On the same date, in Petty patent Register there were 208 petty patents in force and in SPC Register 85 Supplementary protection certificates (SPC)

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. The news webpage is the homepage of IPO website www.zis.gov.rs

Annual reports, from 2006: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/about-us/documents/annual-reports/

Electronic Publications: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/electronic-publications/

Legislation on IPR: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/about-us/documents/laws-and-regulations/

International Classification system IPC 2025.1 available for search in Serbian – WIPO interface:

https://reg.zis.gov.rs/classifications/ipc/ipcpub

Helpdesk contact – Education and Information Center: info.eic@zis.gov.rs 

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information on the following topics is desired:

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 and other issues related to invention protection. 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. Client consultancy in accordance with the topics:

Patent protection – 1527

Trademark protection – 2972

Copyrights – 1178

Industrial design – 649

Enforcement matters – 320

Other - 161

TOTAL: 6807 consultations/information provided

E-filing user guide, electronic certificates description and installation manuals, recommendations how to prepare the proper documentation and graphic data format for application – all is accessible over https://www.zis.gov.rs/e-prijava/. Link is to the Serbian page e-Filing, more simplified is English page https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/e-application/

E-filing system for IP rights is fully functional and is improved on the back-office side with common dispatch module. The general information available on https://www.zis.gov.rs/e-prijava/ ; the production E-filing website on URL https://e-usluge.zis.gov.rs/ZISEPrijave/.

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:

https://www.zis.gov.rs/uputstva-i-obrasci/  

About proceedings for patent and petty patent: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/rights/patent/

FAQ on IPR proceedings: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/frequently-asked-questions/

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

Patent and petty patent registers and SPC database are available in the electronic form since 2014. Bibliographic data and legal status of the patent application filed starting with year 1994 are available in the register, with links to the published patent documents.
The full application dossier in electronic form is not publicly available. All published patent documents since Office’s foundation in1920, with few gaps in early years are available at Publication server.

Online patent databases and tools are available at the following link: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/databases/patent/  

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

IPO uses International Patent Classification system (IPC). The classification of the patent applications is captured in the IPAS database. IPO patent examiners use WIPO IPCR online system to capture IPC translation updates. The translation is published on the upgraded IPCPub platform which is provided by WIPO and installed and maintained by the office IT department. Translated IPC versions as well as the last one IPC 2025.1 are available in the Serbian and English language at the following link:  https://reg.zis.gov.rs/classifications/ipc/ipcpub

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. Espacenet RS is updated on the regular basis, following the publication of each IPO-RS Official gazette. Patent description translation to other languages is possible within the Espacenet machine translation feature. Retrieved patent documents are available for the review and download in the PDF format. Serbian patent documents are available in PATENTSCOP database with documents from 2006.

III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Information on the following topics is desired:

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, registered petty patents and SPC. Full text of all published patent documents in Gazette, are available on Publication server and they can be searched by the application/publication number, IPC symbol, document kind and publication date on the following URL address and they are available in PDF format. The documents are scanned and cannot be searched by key words in full text.

http://pub.zis.gov.rs/rs-pubserver/search.jsp?lg=en

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. The Intellectual Property Gazette is published twice a month since 2020, and the first half-monthly issue contains only published trademark applications for the purpose of the opposition period which lasts three months from the publication date in the Gazette. The second monthly edition is published at the end of month with published trademark applications, trademark registrations with all other industrial property right information including patents, petty patents, SPC. 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.

https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/intellectual-property-gazette/

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 patent databases are accessible through it. National full text patent databases are searchable in electronic form using MIMOSA professional search software for advanced search through 105 638 nationally published patent documents. IP Office is preparing to switch from MIMOSA to WIPO publish for search through national patent documents. EPO ANSERA new search tool is used by patent examiners. Internally, WIPO IPAS administration system is used for administration of patent applications. Access to the scientific non-patent literature is obtained through KoBSON system of National library of Serbia.

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 is part of the office’s Education and Information Center. At the library at 4 workstations, individuals can perform free individual or assisted search through national patent documentation through MIMOSA software (105 638 documents), Patent Publication Server (105 638 documents), Espacenet as well as through Trademark and Design national databases. National databases and registers also can be accessed on-line as well as through MIMOSA software with the instruction for use, Espacenet RS or Espacenet Worldwide free of charge. All those documents can be retrieved online through different databases at the following link: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/databases/patent/

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

Legal status of retrieved documents is available in the e-Patent register for all documents since 1994. The register inscriptions are available since the year 2015, when the office established electronic patent register. Patent register is available at the following link: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/databases/patent/

The older register inscriptions, before year 2015, are still available in the paper form and can be viewed free of charge. Every person can obtain excerpts from the paper register by submitting relevant request and paying a service fee to the account of the Office.

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

Information on the following topics is desired:

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

For the administration of patent, petty patent and supplementary protection certificate, IPO uses the administrative process management system WIPO IPAS, which is integrated with the EDMS to provide full electronic file. Starting with the year 2017, all incoming IPR related documents are digitized, and stored in EDMS, together with official letters. Reception activity is conducted by the specific module, which is integrated with e-Filing and IPAS systems, so to streamline reception and data capture of the electronic and paper documents.

WIPO Patent OCR proofreading platform is used for the preparation of the patent documents publication and full text. This platform uses Abby Fine Reader OCR server, and it is optimized to efficiently regularly process high workload of tens thousands of document pages in the batch procedures. This platform is expanded with custom scripts for the generation of the different document formats for the different publication and data dissemination systems.

In the processes of search and patent granting, office patent examiners use ANSERA search tool, the professional patent information retrieval tool, provided by European Patent Office, national patent databases as well as other sources of non-patent and patent literature.

WIPO PUBLISH platform is implemented in the testing environment. WIPO Publish provides contemporary user interface through customizable web pages, and enables advanced search, powered by the underlying search engine SOLR. The updated program versions are regularly tested and deployed.

Hardware used to support business processes of the Office

IPO is connected to the Internet by the direct optical connection through Government IT Office. The main part of the core business server infrastructure was migrated to the ORACLE cloud of the Government Data Center IT Office in December 2024 while part of server infrastructure had been left within the Office. 

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

Patent files are available in the IPAS database starting with the filing year 1990. Patent data for the publication in the Gazette are extracted monthly from the IPAS database. Bibliographic data are transformed into ST36 format and loaded into MIMOSA RS database, Publication server and also shared with the WIPO and EPO. Data in the electronic patent register are automatically refreshed daily.

Increasing part of patent description documents is received in electronic form, mostly from the patent representatives. Almost 100% of regional EP patent validation requests and subsequent documents are submitted electronically. The regional patent bibliographic data are automatically loaded into internal databases from the EPO’s weekly EBD files. In 2024 the regular monthly provision of the full-text for the published documents is provided. Paper documents are scanned in the WIPO Scan and EPO Scan systems. Patent files are kept in the EDMS system. Preparation for the publication of the patent documents is conducted in the customized WIPO Patent OCR platform. The publication of the Gazette is accompanied with the publication of the respective published patent documents on the Publication server.

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

Databases used for searching by patent examiners internally accessible are: national patent documentation through MIMOSA RS and ANSERA search tool of EPO. Other national databases are also used regularly.

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

IPAS is administrative system for management of patents and all other industrial property rights (trademarks, designs). The new electronic E-filing system was launched in 2017 and available on https://www.zis.gov.rs/e-prijava/  It requires locally approved digital certificates for electronic signature to submit the applications and subsequent documents. This enables users to electronically submit different kinds of requests.

The legal status of the granted regional patents is available through the EPOs Federated Register Service (see https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/rs-patent-register/). Serbian IP office was among the first EPO member states which implemented the second phase of the Federated Register Project - federated retrieval. The web service is internally developed and maintained in the IPO-RS.

IPO developed data exchange tools for providing to WIPO the legal status updates of the PCT patents in the national phase in Serbia.
IPO prepares the authority file for the published patent documents.

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

Information on the following topics is desired:

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

The IPO continually checks and amends bibliographical data and in such a way improves the national patent databases. Also, in the course of 2024, 1,546 patent documents were prepared for publication and uploaded to the Office’s Publication Server, including patent documents related to: 1,374 registered patents, 36 registered utility model, and 136 patent application publications. All data on submitted applications were updated daily in the Office’s electronic registers and records. Furthermore, 1,544 patent documents with bibliographic data in XML format were prepared for updating in global databases such as Espacenet (EPO) and Patentscope (WIPO).

https://www.zis.gov.rs/baze-podataka/patent/

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

Various publications related to patents such as studies, brochures, newsletters and leaflets are available in paper form or in electronic form on the IPO website: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/electronic-publications/

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

The Education and information Centre (EIC) of the IPO provides support in the form of a service of disseminating information and education realized through consultations and training, seminars and workshops aiming identification, protection, management and exploitation of the results of research considering that intellectual property is created in research institutions. In a broader context this helps to promote innovation - transformation of ideas into products, processes and technologies benefiting society as a whole.

Stimulating universities and other public research institutions to be more active in protecting and exploiting, the EIC held many seminars for professors, researches and students.

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

IPO Serbia has a public library where all interested parties can get the personal consultancy for trademark, patent, industrial design filing and procedures. Through Education and Information Center the seminars, information, including trademark system and the other proceedings are delivered to the public. Each month on third Thursday, Open Door event is organized in IPO for customer’s consultations beside the opportunity for consultations every day on regular basis.

Wide scope of education and information services is adjusted to the various target groups including: business companies and institutions that offer support to business, organizations involved in R&D, institutions of high education, institutions for the enforcement of the intellectual property rights and others. The education is performed in the form of lectures, seminars, conferences, consultations on protection, use and management of intellectual property rights. In 2024, 47 seminars were delivered to different stakeholder’s groups with 2927 participants. 24 seminars were delivered to universities and R&D organizations with 1036 participants, 10 events for general public with 1391 participants, 10 events for SMEs with 373 participants 2 events with 97 participants for enforcement institutions and 1 event for 30 inventors.  Small and medium enterprises and R&D teams are offered the special service designed in particular for them, Intellectual Property Pre-diagnosis and “1to1” consultations and altogether 11 of such services were delivered. The Office was present at the 6 trade and other fairs with 330 consultations delivered to visitors and exhibitors. more about those activities in the first part of Annual Report 2024: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/about-us/documents/annual-reports/ 

IP Office provided during 2024 and 43 commercial state of the art, FTO or bibliographic searches related to patents.

E-filing user guide, electronic certificates description and installation manuals, recommendations how to prepare the proper documentation and graphic data format for application – all is accessible through link:

English: https://www.zis.gov.rs/en/e-application/  

Serbian (more extensive): https://www.zis.gov.rs/e-prijava/  

Other activities

Over the year, the Office’s website was visited by 76,000 users, of which 73,000 were unique visitors. A total of 436,000 pages were viewed (5.76 pages per user). Besides the homepage, the most frequently visited pages were those that allow searches of trademark and patent databases, containing information on intellectual property rights, and providing guidelines for application submissions and fees payable in proceedings before the Office. In 2024, 102 news were published on the Office’s website, while more than 120 posts, including news, announcements, and educational content about intellectual property rights, were shared across its social media platforms.

VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION

Information on the following topics is desired:

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

Full text of published patent documents with search reports is shared with EPO Espacenet and WIPO Patentsope. Serbian IPO established monthly delivery of the produced full text for the published patent documents, together with the bibliographic data in the ST36 format

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

In the year 2024, IPO continued data exchange with WIPO of the PCT National Phase legal status updates. IPO started using ePCT platform for administering national phase of the PCT patent procedure.

In 2024, the Serbian IP Office continued exchange with EPO Federated Register, Espacenet and Patentscope..

IPO staff participated at PATLIB and EPO Patent information conferences in 2024, participated in activiries of EPO Obseravtory.

The WIPO supported start of the Development IPR Strategy in Serbia at the end of 2024.

VII. ACTIVITIES RELATING TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OF WIPO STANDARDS CONCERNING PATENT INFORMATION

Note: For each Standard listed below, please enter one of the following values: 

• "Implemented";
• "On implementation phase";
• "Planning to implement";  and
• "No plan to implement"

WIPO Standard ST.3: Two-letter codes for the representation of states, other entities and organizations

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.6: Numbering of published patent documents

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.9: Bibliographic data on and relating to patents and SPCs

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.10/C: Presentation of bibliographic data components

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.13: Numbering of applications for IPRs

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.14: References cited in patent documents

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.16: Identification of different kinds of patent documents 

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.18: Patent gazettes and other patent announcement journals

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.26: Presentation of nucleotide and amino acid sequence listings using XML

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.27: Recommendation for the Exchange of Patent Legal Status Data

On implementation phase

WIPO Standard ST.36: Processing of patent information using XML

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.37: Recommendation for an Authority File of Published Patent Documents

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.50: Corrections, alterations and supplements relating to patent information

Implemented

WIPO Standard ST.90: Recommendation for processing and communicating Intellectual Property data using Web APIs (Application Programming Interfaces)

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.91: Recommendations on digital three-dimensional (3D) models and 3D images

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.92: Recommendations on the Data Package Format for the Electronic Exchange of Priority Documents

No plan to implement

WIPO Standard ST.96: Processing of Industrial Property information using XML

No plan to implement

Other WIPO Standards Related to Patents

Note: Please list any other WIPO Standards related to patents (not mentioned above) that your Office or Organization has implemented, is currently in the process of implementing, or plans to implement in the future.  For each Standard, please indicate the implementation status with an option: Implemented, On implementation Phase or Planning to Implement.

VIII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS

Please include any other relevant information here.

1.Classification is allotting one or more classification symbols (e.g., IPC symbols) to a patent application, either before or during search and examination, which symbols are then published with the patent application.

2. Preclassification is allotting an initial broad classification symbol (e.g., IPC class or subclass, or administrative unit) to a patent application, using human or automated means for internal administrative purposes (e.g., routing an application to the appropriate examiner).  Usually preclassification is applied by the administration of an office.

3. Reclassification is the reconsideration and usually the replacement of one or more previously allotted classification symbols to a patent document, following a revision and the entry into force of a new version of the Classification system (e.g., the IPC).  The new symbols are available on patent databases.