Annual Technical Report 2010 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Slovakia (CWS/ATR/TM/2010/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.
I. Evolution of registration activities
Changes experienced in terms of application filings and registrations with respect to the previous year
In relation to the entry of the Act No. 506/2009 on Trademarks into the force from January 1, 2010, the Office introduced changes related to trademark applications proceedings. It was necessary to amend internal databases and all relevant documents used in proceedings on applications.
During 2010 the Office received 2,976 trademark applications, what represents increase by 4.5 % when compared with the previous year.
When compared with 2009, the number of domestic trademark applications increased by 2.1 % to 2,238.
In 2010, 2,155 international trademark applications were filed under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement. It represents decrease by 25.1 % when compared with 2009.
Total number of registered national trademarks decreased by 25.8% to 2,299.
The number of domestic registered trademarks decreased by 25.6 % (1,662), the number of trademarks registered for foreign applicants decreased by 26.1 % to 637.
On December 31, 2010, there were 49.973 valid trademarks registered in the Office register.
For comparison, there is the statistics on trademark applications and registrations of the years 2005 - 2010.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to trademarks
URL to Annual Technical Reports on Trademarks:
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 secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
Publishing, printing, copying techniques
Publication of trademarks
The Office publishes published trademark applications and registered/ renewed trademarks in the Official Gazette.
Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR“
Trademark information forms part of the Official Gazette - “ Vestník ÚPV SR”, covering all industrial property rights in one publication. IPO SR started to publish the Official Gazette only in electronic form on CD ROM in PDF format as from 2008. In 2010 the Gazette had a circulation of 150 copies, of which 53 were distributed monthly by subscription. Other copies were sent free of charge to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO, to information and consulting sites INNOINFO, within the frame of industrial property information exchange to foreign offices and as the statutory copies according to the act as well. Electronic form of Official Gazette, available to the public in the Internet free of charge, contained searchable data, which were regularly updated. Within international exchange the Official Gazette was distributed into 30 countries including EPO and WIPO.
The following numbers of trademarks were published in the Official Gazette in 2010:
2 292 published trademarks applications
2 318 registered trademarks
2 222 renewed trademarks
Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of trademark information
The Gazette contains trademark announcements arranged in following main chapters:
- list of published trademark applications (numerical series)
- bibliographic data of published trademark applications including the list of goods and services (arranged according to application numbers)
- list of registered trademarks without change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks without change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (arranged according to the registration numbers)
- list of registered trademarks with change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks with change after publishing an application in comparison to applied sign (arranged according to the registration numbers)
- list of registered trademarks based on trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with the Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (numerical series of applications with number of registration)
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks based on trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with the Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (arranged according to registration number)
- list of renewed registrations of trademark (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
- bibliographic data of renewed registrations of trademark (arranged according to the registration numbers)
- international registrations of trademarks
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks replaced by an international registration according to the article 4 bis of the Madrid Agreement and article 4 bis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks (arranged according to the international registration numbers)
- official decisions (termination, refusal, etc.)
- trademarks declared invalid
- trademarks revoked and declared invalid for certain goods and services
- assignments of rights and other changes of owners
- partial assignments
- right of lien
- registration of licensing contracts in respect of trademarks
- termination of licensing contracts
- registration of sublicensing contracts in respect of trademarks
- termination of sublicensing contracts
- change of data concerning trademark owners
- change in the list of goods and services
- change of wording or reproductions of trademark
- corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes
Word processing and office automation
Text processing and office administration automation is ensured by application of databases of trademarks.
Techniques used for the generation of trademark information (printing, recording, photocomposing, etc.)
MS Office 2003, FineReader 10.0, Adobe Acrobat 9 Professional SK, Agfa FotoLook 3.6, Quark Xpress Passport 7.5, Corel Draw 11, Adobe InDesign Standard CS4 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 trademark documents.
URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online trademark gazettes and to other sources of trademark information, including download of bulk trademark 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", give public access to information from national registers of industrial property rights and are updated daily http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=en
- “Trademark Classifications” contains Slovak version of 9th edition of Nice and 6th edition of Vienna Classification (fully searchable), links to other classifications systems for classifying trademarks used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia-ochranne-znamky
- “Official Gazette” enables searching in single issues or in a selected issue or in all issues http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette.
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#znamky.
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 trademark information
Classification and reclassification activities; Classification systems used, e.g., International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification), International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification), other classification (please indicate whether goods and services for the registration of marks and whether the figurative elements of marks are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification(s) is (are) used)
Goods and services are classified in accordance with the actual version of the International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification). In the IPO SR exist an obligatory classifying system of goods and services by applicant according the said Classification. The last version of the International Classification of the Figurative Elements of Marks (Vienna Classification) is used as the code system of figurative elements of trademarks, which are classified by Office's expert.
Use of electronic classification systems to check the classification symbols furnished by an applicant and which are contained in the lists of goods and/or services
Classification symbols were checked by internal electronic classification system built in Office registry software.
Obligation for applicants to use pre-defined terms of the classification applied
In accordance with the Act No.506/2009 the applicant is obliged to indicate in the application the goods and services for which the trademark is filed, according to the International Classification (Nice Classification) accompanied with the appropriate number of this Classification. But there is no obligation for applicants to use pre-defined terms of the classification.
Bibliographic data and processing
The WIPO Standard ST.60 is used for trademark 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. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep
File Building
Since the computerized search system for trademark information has been launched the trademark manual search files building and updating has been ceased.
Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file
In 2010, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR received trademark gazettes from the following states and organizations: AT, BA, BG, BR, CH, CZ, DE, EE, FR, HR, HU, IT KG, LT, LV, MD, MK, PL, PT, RO, RU, SI, SM, UA, US, OHIM and WIPO.
V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems
In-house systems (online/offline)
The online trademark database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national trademarks searches and purposes of proceedings on trademark 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 the trademarks.
International trademarks searches were performed in the Internet and in the Office management system “INVENTIO” for administration of international trademarks with designation for SK.
In the beginning of 2006, the Office implemented a new search system Acsepto®. It enables performing the professional trademark searches for designations of products and services in databases of national, international and European trademarks as well as in other selected trademark databases.
CTM searches
In accordance with the EU Council Regulation No.40/1994 on the Community Trademark, the Office continued performing the searches about subjects of the Community trademark (CTM) applications also during the previous year. Based on OHIM requests the Office made searches in databases of national and international trademarks with designation for the Slovak Republic, the results of which were regularly sent back to OHIM.
Similarly as in case of the services provided to the public the search system Acsepto® has been used also for CTM searches. It enables making searches of word, picture and combined trademarks within all designations applied for or protected in the territory of the Slovak Republic.
The number of requests under the system effective for CTM applications filed on March 10, 2008 or after this date was stabilised at the level of average 43 trademarks per week. The Office made 2 286 searches for designations of products and services last year.
TMview
In October 2010 the Office made accessible 94 800 Slovak trademarks within the project TMview http://tmview.europa.eu/tmview/welcome.html. It is a searchable trademark database of participating EU member countries with references and connections to national databases in languages all countries involved.
List of search CD-ROMs and databases used on local network through the UltraNet 2000system:
IPO SR Official Gazette
ACSEPTO
ROMARIN
International Nonproprietary Names (INN) For Pharmaceutical Substances
List of Costumary Names Used in Brazil Associated with Biodiversity
legal and economic information, encyclopedia and statistics
translating dictionaries
External databases
Internet databases in particular:
ROMARIN
Madrid Express Database (by December 31,2010)
OHIM – Community Trademarks Database
National databases USPTO and IPOUK
WIPO Gazette of International Marks
TMview
Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)
The Office automation management system contains national and international trademarks registers (data since 1990 - national trademarks and data since 1947 - international trademarks) using "INVENTIO" software.
Administrative databases based on Lotus Domino and Fabasoft eGov Suite.
Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), carriers used
Equipment used:
LAN is built on base of the Cisco technology, Fast ETHERNET 1000/100/10 Mbit/s, WINDOWS 2003 Server; MS SQL Server 2005; workstations PC Pentium, Windows XP, thin client WYSE V10, WYSE S10
Linux Red Hat Enterprise 4.0,
Informix Dynamic Server 10,
Citrix MetaFrame Presentation Server 4.0,
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 trademark information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering trademarks, assisting clients with search procedures, obtaining official publications and registry extracts)
Planning, administration, automation, security
In 2010, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 1 326 users and 1 291 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6 926 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 23 560 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 2010 there were performed 66 patent searches, 1 070 trademark searches and 28 design searches and 64 searches on bibliographic data based on 574 written and 4 personally requests. The number of design and patent searches increased significantly (design searches 100% and patent searches 32%) whereas trademark searches decreased 15%.
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 trademark 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”, Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR” in paper) 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 in International Trademarks Database ROMARIN
- searches upon request - orders in written and on-line form
- registry information provided in the reading room
- CD-ROM workstations available in the reading room
At present, traditional methods of searching trademarks (card catalogue) are not used.
Trademark 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)
- Nice Classification (9-th edition)
- Vienna Classification (6-th edition)
- trademark classifications and related information
- annual technical reports on trademark information (2002-2010)
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 2010. 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 November. The workshop aimed at evaluation of the actual co-operation and introduction of the future vision was also a part of the programme.
The European Patent Office proposed and 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.
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 in 2010 continued particularly in the field of education and seminar organisation. The seminar “Enterprise Innovation Efficiency Supporting Activities” was organised in the end of February in co-operation with the Regional Chamber of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry (RC SCCI) in Trenčín with participation of two representatives of the IPO SR. Members of InnoInfo could also get information on industrial property (particularly on trademark) at the conference ”Intellectual Property in Slovakia X” and at the 6th Electronic Filing Users Day. In May the workshop „Utilisation of Industrial Property in Enterprises“ was organised in Košice. Representatives of the Office and entrepreneurs discussed issues on intangible assets protection possibilities and the Office’s related services at the workshop. Seminar “IP Rights in European Projects of Research, Development of Technologies and Support” was realised in co-operation with BIC Bratislava and Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava on October 5, 2010. Approximately 50 entrepreneurs were trained this way at the Office last year.
Agreement on Cooperation InnoInfo between the IPO SR and RC SCCI Košice (15th InnoInfo) was concluded on May 24, 2010. The basic and partial commission contract in order to sale expert literature issued by the IPO SR was signed between the IPO SR and RC SCCI Trenčín. By the end of 2010 18 publications of the Office were sold by this way.
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 filling.
The number of requests for information increased by 25% when comparing with 2009. Information Centre provided totally 7 099 information in 2010. 5 728 information was provided by the telephone, 257 information was provided personally, 959 by e-mail, 155 by post.
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
The Office analysed industrial property issues in 32 innovative enterprises. The result of pre-diagnostics was that the Office received 68 applications for subjects of industrial rights from analysed enterprises during three years from introduction of this free service. An interest in this kind of service has been increasing particularly by new enterprises. An offer of the European Patent Office to train of the experts from other member countries at the seminar in Brussels as well as directly at national offices in Croatia and Macedonia was an acknowledgement of the work performed by the Office.
URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of trademark 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 trademarks; opposition and appeal procedures related to trademarks; 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 trademark register, which is kept by the Office with the possibility of simple and advanced search or browsing results. Data concerning in particular pending trademark applications, all filed applications or registered trademarks 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., trademark search service(s) and trademark 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_EN.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 trademark documentation and information
International or regional cooperation in the exchange of trademark information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes
In 2010 followed the mutual exchange of trademark information in the form of official gazettes between the IPO SR and other offices also international organizations, including the OHIM and the WIPO.
Exchange of machine-readable information
In 2002 the IPO SR stopped the participation in the joint ESPACE TRACES CD-ROM project (Trademarks of BG, CZ, HU, PL, RO and SK).
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
April 26, 2010 was the World Intellectual Property Day (WIPD) at the Industrial Property Office of the SR. Organisation of the 10th year of the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia was also a part of the WIPD at the IPO SR. The Conference focused on issues of trademark protection for designations of goods and services. April 26, 2010 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 October 12 - 13, 2010 in the premises of the State Scientific Library in Banská Bystrica the Office organised the Seminar "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights" in co-operation with the WIPO, the event of high importance. The goal of the Seminar was to provide an opportunity to exchange and share expert practical experiences in the area of combating infringement of intellectual property rights with foreign partners.
Co-operation with Universities
The Office in co-operation with the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and WIPO organised the 2nd year of the Seminar "Protection and Exploitation of Intellectual Property at Universities II" on the occasion of the Week of Science and Technique in Slovakia on November 29, 2010 with participation of domestic and foreign experts. Also co-operation with the Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica in the project Module 6 - Intellectual Property Protection - on the base of the Co-operation Agreement from July 7, 2009 continued.
Exhibitions
The Office was represented at the 17th International Engineering Fair in Nitra in 2010. On the occasion of the WIPO two exhibitions were installed in the premises of the Office, namely „The Trademarks and the History of SHP Harmanec (Harmanec Paper-mill), and the Exhibition of WIPO Posters, issued by the World Intellectual Property Organisation during the history of WIPO.
The Office was also presented at the 62nd International Exhibition of Ideas, Inventions and New Products iENA 2010 in German Nuremberg in common stall of European patent offices "Internationales Patent- Informationzentrum" (International Patent Information Centre).
Ján Bahýľ Award
The ceremony of awarding Ján Bahýľ Award took place on October 21 in Banská Bystrica. The goal of the Award is to motivate and support the creativity in Slovakia. For the first time there were three categories of the Ján Bahýľ Award:
- medium-sized and large enterprises with 50 employees and more;
- individual applicants, small enterprises and micro-enterprises with 49 employees and less;
- universities and research centres.
Three teams - authors of the particular solution - and also owners of the related patent or protected design - were awarded the Award on recommendation of the evaluation committee of the Ján Bahýľ Award and the IPO SR President. The Award is represented by the bronze medal with the portrait of the constructor and inventor of a helicopter Ján Bahýľ. The IPO SR President also awarded one honourable mention.
Training courses for national and foreign participants
Intellectual Property Course
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?education
The Office provided education in 4-module Course Intellectual Property accredited by the Ministry of Education of the SR.
The Intellectual Property course consists of four separate parts:
module A: Intellectual Property and Copyright Law Essentials;
module B: Creativity - Management of Creativity, Marketing and Economics;
module C: Information in the field of Industrial Property Protection;
module D: Industrial Property Law.
In the school year 2010/2011 12 graduates finished the Course by their final theses plea. Half of them were extern participants of further education. Final theses of graduates are available in the public study room as study materials for public. Since September there are 15 extern participants and 7 employees of the Office registered in the Course.
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 trademarks
- 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 trademark-related news regarding the Office
http://www.upv.sk