Annual Technical Report 2009 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Slovakia (CWS/ATR/TM/2009/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
During 2009 the Office received 2 847 trademark applications, what represents decrease 25.5 %, when compared with the previous year.
When compared with 2008, the number of trademark applications from Slovak applicants decreased by 23.7 % to 2 192.
In 2009, 2 878 applications for trademarks were filed for an international procedure under the Madrid Agreement and Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement. It represents decrease by 19.4 % when compared with 2008.
Total number of registered trademarks decreased by 11.2 % to 3 097.
The number of domestic registered trademarks decreased by 9.5 % (2 235), the number of trademarks registered for foreign applicants decreased by 15.2 % to 862.
On December 31, 2009, there were 50 013 valid trademarks registered in the Office register.
For comparison with statistics of the years 2005 - 2009, there are following results in trademark area.
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 trademarks 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 as from 2008 (number of Gazette 1/2008). In 2009 the Gazette had a circulation of 150 copies, of which 56 were monthly distributed 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, contains searchable data, which are 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 2009:
2 805 published trademarks applications
3 236 registered trademarks
1 728 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 published trademark applications converted from the Community trademark applications (numerical series)
- bibliographic data of published trademark applications converted from the Community trademark applications including the list of goods and services (arranged according to application numbers)
- list of published trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement(numerical series)
- bibliographic data of published trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (arranged according to application numbers)
- list of registered trademarks without change in comparison to applied sign (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks without change in comparison to applied sign (arranged according to the registration numbers)
- list of registered trademarks without change based on trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (numerical series with application number)
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks without change based on trademark applications converted from international registration to national application in accordance with Article 9quinquis of the Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (arranged according to registration number)
- list of registered trademarks with change in comparison to applied sign (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks with change in comparison to applied sign (arranged according to the registration numbers)
- list of registered trademarks with change 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 with change 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 registered trademarks based on the trademark applications converted from the Community trademarks (numerical series of applications with the number of registration )
- bibliographic data of registered trademarks based on the trademark applications converted from the Community trademarks (arranged according to the registration numbers)
- 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.)
- cancellation of trademark registration
- partial cancellation of trademark registration
- 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 9.0, Adobe Acrobat 8.Professional SK, Agfa FotoLook 3.6, Quark Xpress Passport 7.3, Corel Draw 11, Adobe Design 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.indprop.gov.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
- "Classifications of Trademarks" 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.indprop.gov.sk/?official-gazette.
In the part "Foreign on-line databases" there are links to the most frequently used on-line databases http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?zahranicne-online-databazy.
ON-LINE ORDERS
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?objednavkove-formulare-on-line
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 2009, 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 from March 10, 2008 was stabilised at the level of average 41 trademarks per week. The Office made 2 842 searches for designations of products and services throughout the whole year 2009.
List of search CD-ROMs and databases used on local network through the UltraNet 2000system:
IPO SR Official Gazette
ACSEPTO
ARTICLE 6ter
EUROM - Community trade mark
TMCZ
NIVILO classifications
International Nonproprietary Names (INN) For Pharmaceutical Substances
List of Costumary Names Used in Brazil Associated with Biodiversity
právne a ekonomické informácie, encyklopédie a štatistiky
translating dictionaries
External databases
Internet databases in particular:
ROMARIN
Madrid Express Database
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,
HP Storage Works MSL 5026 series library, MSL 2024,
HP open view Storage Data Protector version A.06.00
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 2009, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 1 322 users and 1 258 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6 802 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 23 824 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 2009 there were performed 50 patent searches, 1 256 trademark searches and 14 design searches and 171 searches on bibliographic data based on 641 written and 18 personally requests.
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 (2002-2009)
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.indprop.gov.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 2009. Representatives of the centres took part in Conference organised by the IPO SR on the occasion of World Intellectual Property Day and in two-day meeting of the Office electronic services users'. In co-operation with the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information the Office organised the seminar Patent Information, Innovations Support – Services and News in the seat of the Centre in Bratislava.
Information and Consulting Sites for Innovations
The mission of the thirteen "innoinfo" centres 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.
The Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Regional branch Trenčín, became the 14th Information and Advisory Point for Innovation – innoinfo – since August 2009. The representatives of the Chamber were involved in activities organised by the Office for these advisory points. Since September they have been attending Intellectual Property Institute in the Office. Selected employees of our satellites could deepen their knowledge at the Conference "Intellectual Property in Slovakia IX" and at the "Electronic Services User's Day".
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 was decreasing also throughout last year. Information Centre provided 5 680 information in 2009. 4 476 information was provided by the telephone, 243 information was provided personally, 840 by e-mail, 116 by post and 5 information by fax.
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 drew up 30 evaluation reports on intellectual property for innovation enterprises according to the Office’s intention in the area of pre-diagnosis of industrial property rights for small and medium – sized enterprises. The Office received 16 industrial property rights applications from the enterprises for which the pre-diagnostics was performed.
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.indprop.gov.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.indprop.gov.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/?objednavkove-formulare-on-line
- price list http://www.upv.sk/?cennik-produktov-a-sluzieb
- 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 2009 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.)
Supporting activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.):
Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia IX.
On April 24, 2009, the IPO SR organised in its premises the conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia IX. The conference was focused on legal protection of designation of origin and geographical indication and also legal protection of guaranteed traditional specialities. Part of the conference was the Open Door Day of the Office for people who were interested in getting information about intellectual property.
Lectures and Seminars
The IPO SR in co-operation with the WIPO organised in May 12-13, 2009 national seminar Recent Developments and Reforms in System of International Patent Protection. 58 participants (patent representatives, professional public, IPO SR employees) took part in the seminar. National Seminar on Geographical Indication was organised by the WIPO and the Ministry of Agriculture of SR in co-operation with the IPO SR in Bratislava on December 1, 2009. The IPO SR also organised 5th Electronic Services Users´ Days in June and October 2009.
The IPO SR employees trained 40 small and medium sized enterprisers at two seminars – "Innovative Activities and their Impact on Company Efficiency" in October 2009 in cooperation with the SCCI RC Trenčín, and "Industrial Property Rights Protection and Possibilities of its Financing" in November in cooperation with the Regional Advisory and Information Centre Prešov.
In November 2009 the IPO SR in cooperation with the Matej Bell University in Banská Bystrica organised national conference on intellectual property protection at universities.
Exhibitions
http://www.upv.sk/?ipo-sr-activities-for-smes
In 2009 the IPO SR was represented at the 1st year of specialized exhibition "Science – Education – Innovations" and at the 16th International Engineering Fair in Nitra. In the premises of the Office the internal exhibition LOGO 2008 took place resulting from the 1st International Competitive Bienale, where 90 competitive works from 35 exhibitors from six European countries were presented. The IPO SR was also presented at the 61st International Exhibition of Ideas, Inventions and New Products IENA 2009.
Training courses for national and foreign participants
Training courses for national participants
The Intellectual Property Course
http://www.indprop.gov.sk/?kurz-dusevne-vlastnictvo
Since 2000, the IPO SR has been an accredited educational institution providing the Intellectual Property Course. The lecturers are university teachers, experts from practice and the IPO SR experts. An overall number of training lessons extends to 316 hours, out of which 110 hours are lectures and the remaining training hours are devoted to hands-on practical exercising and training.
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 academic year 2008/2009 16 participants passed the final examination and submitted their final theses.
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
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
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
Trademark-related news
http://www.upv.sk