Annual Technical Report 2002 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by Republic of Moldova (SCIT/ATR/ID/2002/MD)

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

In the year 2002, the Agency received 623 applications for the registration of industrial designs, of which 140 applications under the national procedure and 483 under the Hague Agreement. At the same time, the total number of industrial designs constituted 2703, of which 760 comprised in the applications filed under the national procedure and 1943 in the applications filed under the Hague Agreement. The total number of applications marked a decrease of 7% as compared with the year 2001, whilst the number of industrial designs comprised in these applications increased by 8%.
The number of applications filed under the national procedure increased by 40%, the number of industrial designs covered by these applications filed under the national procedure increased 2,1 times. The number of applications filed under the international procedure (the Hague Agreement) decreased by 15% and the number of industrial designs comprised in these applications by 10%.
In the year 2002, there were examined and registered 500 international applications filed under the international procedure, with 30 (6%) more than in 2001. The number of industrial designs comprised in these applications has also increased – from 1751 in 2001 to 1948 in 2002 (with 11%). The most active foreign applicants in the year under review were from Switzerland (286 applications with 679 industrial designs), Germany (73 - 629), France (70 - 358), Italy (39 - 214), Holland (10 - 33). Primarily requested fields of protection were: watches and accessories thereof (186 applications including 434 industrial designs); electronic apparatus (82 - 209); ornamental objects (37 - 424); textiles (13 - 268); clothing accessories (12 - 120); building materials (4 - 66); footwear (4 - 55).
In the year 2002, the number of issued certificates for industrial design registration continued to increase, so it reached the highest level in the last 6 years – 80. These comprise 361 industrial designs. As compared with 2001, the number of certificates increased by 20% and those of industrial designs comprised in these certificates – by 84%. All those 80 certificates have been issued to owners from the Republic of Moldova. The analysis of the industrial design registration process emphasizes the increased interest of applicants towards the protection of labels (26 certificates including 169 industrial designs), bottles (27 - 91), footwear (6 - 38), emblems (17 - 17).

In the year 2002, 265 international registrations have been renewed, with 72 (37%) more than in the previous year. These cover 795 industrial designs. Also, the validity of 31 registration certificates have been renewed, with 20 more than in 2001.

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 most important publications in the field of industrial design documentation are the following:
 The Official Bulletin of Industrial Property Protection (BOPI);
 The National Industrial Designs Register;
 The National Industrial Designs Applications Register.
Both Registers are published on paper carrier.
BOPI includes Sections VI with information on industrial designs and models, from January 2000 onwards are available online via our AGEPI web site at www.agepi.md in portable document format (PDF).
Section VI contains:
- FF4L Registered industrial designs (bibliographic data and graphic reproduction);
- FG4L List of industrial design certificates issued in …(date of issuing);
- FG4L List of renewal industrial designs;
- FG4L Numerical Index of industrial designs registered in the Republic of Moldova according to the Hague Agreement;
- FG4L Subject Index of industrial designs registered in the Republic of Moldova according to the Hague Agreement;
- NZ4L List of industrial designs renewed in the Republic of Moldova according to the Hague Agreement.
Section VII contains various types of notices referring to all amendments occurred to the legal status of the protected industrial property objects (List of amendments, List of assignment agreements, Errata, etc), etc.
As from 2002, searches related to industrial designs, registered in the Republic of Moldova and published in BOPI, can be performed on line via our web site www.agepi.md. The Collection contains graphic reproductions of the industrial designs and bibliographic data of the products.
In the year under review, 54 book titles and periodicals have been published with the AGEPI.

III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied

Republic of Moldova became a state party to the Locarno Agreement Establishing an International Classification for Industrial Designs (1968) on December 1, 1997.

The Agency uses the International Classification for Industrial Designs since 1994. All the documents are classified according to the Locarno Classification. The full texts (Romanian and Russian) of the Locarno Classification were published in BOPI.

The classification symbols (the 7th edition of the Classification) of an application are allotted by the applicant. It is up to the Agency to afterwards check, and eventually to correct, the classification symbols.

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

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

At the disposal of examiners in their daily practice, there are the following databases:
- National automated searchable database “Industrial Design”, supporting a number of search fields;
- International applications received in the International Design Bulletin (paper form and CD-ROM);
- Card - files of industrial designs grouped by categories of the Locarno Classification, of the following countries: BY, BG, FI, HR, HU, LT, MK, RO, RU, SK, TJ, UA, UZ. (from 1994 onwards).

The searches cover a period of 9 years for the collection of industrial designs registered under the national procedure and - 14 years for the collection of industrial designs registered under the Hague Agreement.

Moreover, the manual paper search files consist of special books, periodicals, booklets, and a number of other lists and sources.
The examiner’s search files are updated on a regular basis.

V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs

In 2002, the “Industrial Design” Data Base search program has been elaborated for internal use, aimed to ensure the automation of processes for the administration of industrial design applications.
In 2002, the interface for on-line searches in Data Base “Industrial Design” available in Romanian, English and Russian, was put into operation. At present, the “Industrial designs” Data Base contains information on the applications filed from 1993 up to date and on the registered objects. The users have access to the bibliographic data, images of industrial designs, for which the decision to register the industrial design has been taken.
The technical base of the network has been consolidated due to the change of two servers and the additional installation of three others. The administration system of the Active Directory domain based on Windows 2000 Server was elaborated and implemented .
To ensure the stable functioning of the Internet-server, the Linux RedHat 8.0 server with the e-mail antivirus protection was installed. Several work stations were modernized, thus offering, from a technical point of view, sufficient possibilities of homogenizing the working environment, the operation and application soft used within the Agency, namely the installation of the Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional and the MS Office 2000 Professional. All examiners have access to the Internet at their desks.

Equipment used:
- Dual processor Servers: 1 - HP NetServer LC - I I; 1 - HP NetServer E60; 2 – HP Kayak XU800
- One processor Servers : 5 - HP Kayak XU800
- Dual Processor workstation Compaq AP500 with Xerox DocuImage 6205 for scanning documentations and images
- Data storage solutions - Promise UltraTrak SX8000 about 1000 Gb in RAID
- Backup System - HP StorageWorks Ultrium 460 tape drive
- More than 130 PCs based on various Intel and AMD processor systems (Intel Pentium I,II,III; AMD Athlon, Duron )
- 5 scanners
- 5 network printers (Xerox, HP )
- Ethernet 100Mb UTP network set on star topology with the central scalable mount rack with 5 HP and CNet switches
- Dedicated line for Internet connection 96 kbps
- 2 servers based on Linux operating system for Internet gateway, mail and web servers.
- Workstations operating systems : Windows 95/98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
- Software specific of the CD-ROM collections namely Mimosa , Diapat etc

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 AGEPI library, as an AGEPI division, functions simultaneously as an in-house and public library, open to a wide range of users in the Republic of Moldova.

Librarians and information specialists are available in the library to assist the public in all aspects of their work with catalogues, CD-ROMs, books, Data Bases etc. The AGEPI Library is available to the public during 6 days a week(except Sunday) from 9-00 to 16-00.

The full AGEPI Collection available to the interested public is shown in the attached Table II.

With the view of promoting the collection, 81 actions have been organized during the year, including book and document exhibitions: “New acquisitions”, “Industrial Property Protection in the Republic of Moldova”, “AGEPI Publications,” etc. Information about the new acquisitions in the library collection is systematically offered on the AGEPI web site. The information provided on the AGEPI web site – www.agepi.md – covers all general topics concerning industrial designs (national and international legislation, preparation of application, office procedures, forms).
During the year 2002, the AGEPI has rendered to the economic agents of the republic 734 consultations in the field of obtaining titles of protection of industrial property objects, organized 200 visits to the enterprises; it rendered a double volume of information/retrieval services in the IPP field as compared with the previous year.

The Library also provides, by payment, such services as copying the documents from CD-ROM/DVD-ROM on paper (in 2002 – 2235 pages) or on CD / DVD-ROM (in 2002 – 861 documents), copying the documents form the Library paper Collection, selling the AGEPI editions.

The main features regarding the library-information services rendered in 2002 are the following: readers- 512; visits – 5986; borrowed documents – 56174, including: books – 8019, periodicals – 20955, patents -6041, CD-ROM – 13528, BOPI – 7631.

TableII - The attached file provides the list of AGEPI Collection on CD/DVD-ROM

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information

In the year 2002, the process for completion and development of the literature and document collection in the industrial property protection field continued on the basis of a bilateral exchange with 44 foreign patent and trademark offices. The acquisition of literature in the field via libraries, Publications and book exhibitions, by subscription to periodical publications from the country and from abroad also continued on the basis of periodicals published by the AGEPI - in total over 80 sources.

The Official Bulletin (BOPI) was received in 2002 by bilateral exchange from 31 countries in paper form and from 6 countries on CD-ROM (in total 528 Official Bulletins); 1228 CD-ROMs have been acquired in 2002 by bilateral exchange from 16 countries, as well as, 873 books and 2772 periodicals.

The Agency has furnished to 26 Industrial Property Offices and other related international institutions 26 CD-ROMs (AGEPI Annual Report 2002, Legislation in the field), 684 BOPI, 24 periodicals (“Intellectus”).

VIII. Matters concerning education and training including technical assistance to developing countries

During the year 2002, the AGEPI organized 18 national and 2 international seminars on industrial property protection matters, where the experts of Industrial Design Division have been involved.

Concomitantly, the AGEPI staff delivered specialized courses for judges of different courts, for councilors in industrial property and managers of economic units of the republic, the experts of Industrial Design Division being responsible for conducting the Industrial Design subject.

At the same time, special courses, thematic seminars, upgrading probations were organized for the AGEPI employees in order to improve their professional skills and extend the knowledge spectrum.

In 2002, the AGEPI staff, including the specialists of the Industrial Design Division, have participated in 47 international events such trainings, meetings, seminars, symposia, works, consultations etc. in the field.

Particularly, it is worth to mention the bilateral seminar “Protection of Industrial Designs in Romania and the Republic of Moldova”, organized in cooperation with the State Office for Patents and Trademarks of Romania (OSIM). The AGEPI industrial design specialists also took part in the Conference for Young Professionals on Industrial Property Issues that was held in Kyrgyzstan, participated in 13 national exhibitions.

IX. Other relevant matters