Annual Technical Report 2008 on Trademark Information Activities submitted by Hungary (SCIT/ATR/TM/2008/HU)
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I. Evolution of registration activities
PREPARATION OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LEGISLATION
The Hungarian Patent Office (HPO) performed its duties related to the preparation of legislation with a comprehensive approach in an efficient and proactive manner. The majority of the tasks focused on the preparation and management of amendments to legislation concerning industrial property and copyright. An important part of the work was connected with the legal drafting and other duties related to Hungary’s membership of the European Union, the European Patent Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Organization. Preparation for the Hungarian EU presidency in 2011 intensified, which, as a new challenge, imposed numerous tasks on the HPO.
On 15 December 2008 the Parliament adopted an amendment aimed at the legal harmonisation of Act LXXVI of 1999 on copyright (Copyright Act). In line with the HPO’s mid-term strategy, the amendment brought a change in the provisions on public lending rights, a new system for the authorisation of orphan works was developed, and the order of approval of the fee schedule of collective rights management organisations was also modified.
A package of three draft laws was prepared comprising of the proposal on the amendment to certain industrial property laws, that on the accession to the promulgation of the amendment of the Protocol Related to the Madrid Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Marks. The whole package will be submitted to the Government in 2009.
After taking over certain tasks from the Ministry for National Development and Economy, the minister without portfolio responsible for research and development issued Decree 2/2008. (VIII. 22.) TNM on industrial property qualification, replacing the former legislation, i.e. Decree 78/1995. (XII. 29.) IKM on industrial property qualification. The new decree entered into force on 30 August 2008.
The HPO prepared a study and model regulations for the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for the preparation of the regulations on the management of intellectual property. A survey was carried out on the situation of book publishing and book commerce including the current issues of intellectual property protection.
The HPO is also making preparations for the fulfilment of the obligation of submitting to the Commission a national report by the deadline of 29 April 2009 prescribed by Article 18 of Directive 2004/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004 on the enforcement of industrial property rights. In order to structure the implementation of the data collection necessary for the report, the president of the HPO and the state secretary of the Ministry of Justice and Law Enforcement have sent out a questionnaire on two occasions to the stakeholders concerned as well as to the most important state agencies responsible for enforcing intellectual property rights.
The HPO participated in the preparation of the government decree on the assessment procedure of grant applications in the field of R&D and innovation, and in the preparation of certain legislative amendments on the exploitation of innovative results.
Hungarian Council for the Protection of Intellectual Property
During the seven years since its establishment, the Hungarian Council for the Protection of Intellectual Property (hereinafter referred to as the “Council”) has grown into a body playing an orientating role in the intellectual property profession. Its activities have helped the work of central public administration and commanded keen international interest. The activities of the Council are regulated by Article 115/F of Act XXXIII of 1995 on the protection of inventions by patents.
In March 2008 the third volume of an intellectual property protection series, co-edited by the HPO and the Council, entitled White Paper on Intellectual Property Protection was launched in the framework of a press conference. The volume devoted to the current issues of intellectual property protection gives an insight into the strategic ideas of domestic and international intellectual property protection in a knowledge-based economy of the 21st century. It also contains the HPO’s mid-term strategy for institution development, offers an overview of the new Hungarian body, the National Board Against Counterfeiting facilitating the enforcement of IP rights; and it elaborates on the most important issues concerning the “hot topics” in copyright and their backgrounds.
It is the fifth year that the quarterly “Newsletter on intellectual property protection”, a joint publication of the HPO and the Council, is published. It summarises news and current information in the fields of industrial property and copyright. The aim of the publication is to acquaint responsible political and professional decision-makers and figures in the economic and cultural spherese with current national and international issues of intellectual property protection in a concise form.
Upon the agreement concluded with the professional and financial support of the Council, the Hungarian Central Statistical Office made available for the HPO data on gross added value, gross emission, employment and income from 2006 for the purposes of an analysis on the economic contribution of copyright-based industries in Hungary, in line with the methodological guide laid down by the WIPO.
OFFICIAL ACTIVITY
Since our country’s accession to the European Union on 1 May 2004, the effect of Community protection systems has extended to Hungary as well. In 2008 the number of Community trademarks with effect extending to Hungary surpassed 81 000, that of Community designs rose above 78 000. At the same time, the dynamic growth in the number of Community trademark applications of the previous years came to a halt. As a consequence of the draining effect of the Community protection system, the number of foreign trademark applications received under the Madrid Agreement further decreased.
Due to the economic recession the number of trademark applications of domestic applicants decreased by 9%.
The HPO has performed the tasks of a receiving office deriving from the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), from the accession to the European Patent Convention on 1 January 2003 (including euro-PCT applications) and from the accession to the European Union on 1 May 2004. Hungarian applicants have been filing their foreign applications increasingly with the HPO as a receiving office. Domestic applicants filed 48 Community trademark applications, in 2008 via the HPO.
As a result of Hungary’s accession to the European and Community protection systems on 1 May 2004, the amount of rotection obtained by foreign applicants and extending to the territory of Hungary has continuously increased, which the Hungarian enterprises producing for the domestic market should also respect. The accession to the Community and European protection systems has also generated new official tasks for the HPO. In 2008 the HPO carried out national trademark searches for the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) and prepared the search reports with respect to more than 30 000 Community trademark applications. In the optional search system operating since 10 March 2008 not more than 3.6% of the Community trademark applicants requested national search Europe-wide, therefore, we will have to reckon with a decrease in the amount of such search tasks.
TRADEMARKS
In 2008, 4132 international trademark applications were received under the Madrid Agreement. As a consequence of the draining effect of the Community trademark system, the number of international applications was down by 9%, compared with the previous year. More than 87 000 Community trademark applications also covering Hungary were filed with the OHIM. Hungarian applicants filed 277 Community trademark applications, and 168 international (under the Madrid Agreement) applications.
The number of trademark applications filed following the national route was 3843; 9.5% less than in the previous year. The activity of domestic applicants was down by 9% compared with the previous year. Applications received from enterprises were preponderant in the case of both domestic and foreign applicants: 82% of domestic applications and 98% of foreign applications were of such origin. The three classes most frequently indicated in trademark applications filed following the national route were advertising, business (Class 35), education, training, sporting (Class 41), paper, packaging materials (Class 16).
In national trademark registration procedures 5359 national trademark cases were completed, the number of registrations was 4001, 390 applications were rejected, 132 withdrawn and 836 considered withdrawn. 3675 trademark applications were published. 72 cases were recommenced on the basis of requests for review. The number of pending cases further decreased, from 3959 to 2502. To the general satisfaction of applicants, the full processing time of registration procedures was reduced from 11 months to 9.8 months, while the time until the publications of trademark applications decreased on average from 6 months to 3.5 months.
With respect to national trademark procedures, the number of oppositions decreased compared with the previous year: 152 were filed. The procedure was com pleted in 233 cases; the processing time shortened also in the cases in which opposition was involved. The popularity of accelerated and fast-track registration procedures indicates the demand of customers for a quick closing of procedures. The customers requested accelerated registration procedure in 222 cases and fast-track registration procedure in 90 cases.
The HPO proceeded in 63 cases covering national trademarks to be settled by a board. 53 requests related to cancellation and 10 to revocation. The processing time was short, that is, 7-8 months.
The settlement of requests for cancellation in accelerated procedure was asked for in 2 cases.
4078 international trademarks were granted protection. The HPO issued search reports together with declaration of provisional statement of grant of protection or notification of provisional refusal in 4 300 cases, it issued final decision on refusal in 102 cases. The HPO received 60 oppositions, the number of cases completed that concerned opposition amounted to 59. The number of oppositions was down by almost 20% compared with the previous year.
The HPO received 10 new trademark cases to be settled by a board, of which 2 were requests for cancellation and 8 for revocation. 30 cases were completed, of which 15 were related to revocation and 15 to cancellation. The number of pending cases before the board decreased from 28 to 17. The average processing time continued to be 12-14 months in these cases.
At the end of 2008, international (Madrid) trademarks valid in Hungary totalled 143 130, representing a ecrease of 3% compared with the previous year. 33% of them were owned by German, 16% by French and 11% by Swiss proprietors. 68% of international trademarks valid in Hungary were younger than 20 years and 35% were younger than 10 years.
The number of Community trademark protections extending to Hungary was 507 845, up by 19% compared to the previous year.
One new application was filed for the registration of geographical indications with the HPO. At the end of the year there was no pending case. Under the Lisbon Agreement, 3 new international applications concerning appellations of origin were received, which were pending at the end of the year.
The number of national trademarks valid in Hungary amounted to 53 339 at the end of the year, which was up by 1246 on the previous year. Hungarians owned 56% of valid national trademarks. The ratio of US proprietors ranking second was 20%. The US was followed by the United Kingdom (4%) and Germany (3%). Among the proprietors having the highest number of valid national trademarks, Hungarian and foreign pharmaceutical companies ranked first, such as Gedeon Richter Plc., EGIS Pharmaceutical Company, Borsodi Beer Co., Chinoin Co., Zwack Unicum Plc., Glaxo Group and UNILEVER N.V..
The classes most frequently indicated in the case of valid national trademarks were: 1) advertising, commercial services (Class 35); 2) pharmaceutical, sanitary preparations (Class 5) ; 3) education, training, sporting; (Class 41); 4) instruments for scientific purposes; 5) paper, packaging materials (Class 16).
2038 valid trademarks were renewed. 64% of valid trademarks are 10-year-old or younger. 92% of the trademarks are not older than 20 years. 63 valid trademarks are older than a hundred years. Right-holders possessing such “old” trademarks are, among others, DaimlerChrysler AG with the signs “Mercedes” and “Daimler”; Unilever N.V. with the signs “Vasenol” and “Lux”; Kodak GmbH with the sign “Kodak”; Gedeon Richter with the sign “Tomogen”; OSRAM GmbH with the sign “Osram”; Beiersdorf AG with the sign ”Nivea”, GUABER S.r.l. with the sign „VIM” and Gilette Company with with its figurative trademark.
COURT REVIEW OF THE DECISIONS OF THE HUNGARIAN PATENT OFFICE
Less requests for review were settled within the HPO’s own competence. In the case of trademarks, the decline halted, the number of requests reached the level of 2005; the number of cases settled within the HPO’s own competence increased.
2008 saw a considerable, almost 30% decrease in the number of cases returned by the courts, with a final decision. As regards trademark matters, the number of orders rejecting the request for review decreased.
Table_2008_Tm - File type: MS Word 2000 Content: tables
II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of secondary sources of trademark information, i.e., trademark gazettes
In the 113th volume of the Gazette of Patents and Trademarks 12 issues were published. From January 2008, the Gazette is published twice a month providing more favourable conditions for shortening the registration period of the fast-track trademark procedure. The content of the Gazette that appears in the middle of the month covers the national and international trademark publications and is only published electronically. The edition appearing at the end of the month continues to be published in full content in electronic format.
The full content of the Gazette amounted to 3003 pages with 2945 pages of official publications. From 1 January 2006 the Gazette has been published electronically, it is accessible in its full content and can be accessed free of charge in PDF format on the website of the HPO. Either the whole Gazette or its separate columns can be downloaded. There was a great interest in it: the identifiable individual users downloaded 357 774 PDF files. The number of files downloaded by natural persons was 338 008 (95%) in the case of the Hungarian version, while this number was 19 766 (5%) in the case of the English version.
It was the third year that the Industrial Property and Copyright Review was published as an independent publication. This bimonthly periodical comprised altogether 915 pages. The periodical is also accessible electronically on the website of the HPO.
III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of trademark information
Both classification systems (Nice and Vienna) are in use. The classification of list of goods and services is subject to formal examination during the procedure for the registration of trade marks. Despite of the fact, that Hungary is not a contracting state to the Vienna Agreement, the classification is used for figurative signs.
IV. Trademark manual search file establishment and upkeep
The uniform record system set up for the support of the official administration of industrial property, the so-called ENYV system, efficiently performed the tasks concerning the national official activities as well as the tasks arising form Hungary’s membership of the EPC and the European Union. The activities aimed at the development of the administrative system focused on the following tasks: 1) consolidation of the electronic application system, which was launched from January 2007 in respect of trademark applications and from July 2007 as regards patent applications, design applications and trademark renewal applications; 2) expansion and development of electronic registration; 3) operating the platform ensuring the IT background of the CETMOS project, that is the trademark search service launched in 2007 with the cooperation of nine Central and Eastern European countries; 4) maintenance and development of the ENYV system documentation; 5) performance of tasks related to the bi-weekly publication of the Gazette.
The ENYV reconstruction project was launched, whose aim is to perform the necessary technological developmental tasks within the framework of a general concept. The HPO defined the guidelines it wishes to follow in the course of establishing the renewed ENYV system.
V. Activities in the field of computerized trademark search systems
IT SUPPORT IN OFFICIAL ACTIVITIES
In order to continue the development of the electronic administration procedures, the HPO has started the preparations for the introduction of the ELOenterprise electronic document management system. The introduction of the system was assigned to Albacomp Számítástechnikai Zrt., a private limited company with a significant number of references in the field of public administration.
As provided for in Government decree 84/2007. (IV.25.) Korm. on the security requirements of the Central Electronic Service System and the related systems, the duties concerning IT security are carried out by KFKI Zrt. on the basis of quarterly work plans. The IT security educational materials, which constitute the curriculum for internal trainings, as well as the IT Security Documentation System were prepared. In conformity with the ISO Standard 27001, the documentation was compiled, and after examining the IT systems on the basis of the requirements of the standard, the IT security agent prepared a report and a work plan. In order to achieve a higher level of security, the HPO performed IT security developments.
The replacement of the old IT devices continued including the replacement of 80 workstations. New acquisitions are the first Blade Server batch and the EVA 4100 SUN storage device. Within the framework of the server consolidation and virtualisation program, public services run on two physical servers instead of the former five.
DEVELOPMENT OF THE OFFICE’S HOMEPAGE
The HPO was continuously expanding and developing its homepage containing a wide range of professional knowledge, thus fully complying with e-governmental requirements and standards. There were several significant developments, namely that the new editions of the Nice, Locarno and Vienna Classification systems were added to the homepage, that the publication of the 9th volume of the IPC is underway and that the development of the Hungarian Design Council’s regional database commenced.
The homepage was visited by 382 549 individually identifiable visitors on 543 052 occasions. The number of visitors and that of visits were up by 23% and 12% respectively in comparison with the preceding year. The number of pages viewed increased by 8%, while the amount of downloaded data rose by 27%. Furthermore, the number of searches in the electronic register was 93 925. The total number of registered cases in the electronic application system was 163.
The amount of downloads exceeded 600 GB. 62% of the total number of pages were downloaded from Hungarian IP addresses and 16% of all pages were downloaded from computers whose domain registration could not be identified. As for the visitors from foreign countries, the number of visits amounted.
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)
INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY INFORMATION AND DOCUMENTATION SERVICES
The information and documentation services of the HPO focused on informing the public and on the support of the official patent activities by documentation and information technology.
There was a keen interest in the services of the Patent Library on the part of the clients: 7585 requests were received, out of which general information was given in 1874 cases by phone and in 2247 cases in person; in 1875 cases the subject of service was searching patent documents. The Patent Library also performs tasks directly related to the support of official examining work. Within the framework of the retrospective digitisation of the Hungarian patent descriptions, 250 000 pages were electronically processed. The stock of the Industrial Property Professional Library, comprising nearly 20 thousand volumes, increased by 6% in comparison with the preceding year. Since the beginning of 2007, lending has exclusively been electronically available in the “HunTéka” online integrated system for libraries.
IP databases:
http://pipacsweb.hpo.hu/?v=hunpia&a=s&l=eng
http://elajstrom.hpo.hu/?lang=EN
http://www.mszh.hu/English/adatbazis/kozlony_ab/
http://elajstrom.hpo.hu/?service=eplist⟨=en
VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of trademark documentation and information
PARTICIPATION IN INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS
The HPO endeavours to take full advantage of the opportunities arising form international and European projects, which is one of the objectives of the HPO’s mid-term strategy. Within the framework of the IP4INNO project aiming to disseminate intellectual property knowledge in organisations supporting businesses, the so-called multiplier training for organisations offering services for SMEs was successfully completed. One of the objectives of the project was to draw up a uniform European curriculum series with a practical approach for SMEs. A total of 12 modules were worked out on intellectual property protection and utilisation, which provide material for 3 hour-long classroom lessons each. The HPO contributed to the development of several modules and acted as module leader in the module on utilisation. The other important element of the project was the training of multipliers. In the first phase of trainings, in which the experts themselves who developed the curriculum gained training, almost 140 experts supporting businesses and promoting innovation participated. Great interest was expressed in the second phase of the practical intellectual property training, as well, focusing on utilisation, in which the participants trained in the first phase could pass on their knowledge to their colleagues throughout the country. Only from Hungary more than 400 students took part in the training. The pilot trainings of the second phase took place in Belgium, Hungary and Spain.
In the three-year project IPeuropAware launched by the CIP Framework Programme (Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme) of the European Commission in November 2007, 20 national offices and six European industrial trade unions representing the light industry cooperate in order to promote the competitiveness of SMEs by industrial property services and information on rights enforcement. In the first year, on the basis of the evaluation of the national innovation structures and innovation strategies of 20 member states, the new services recommended for introduction were planned, industrial property reference books were compiled and preparations for a helpdesk network were performed.
The HPO undertook to organise campaigns and provide services in the field of intellectual property awareness and rights enforcement. This work was aimed at the examination of the national innovation and industrial property strategies the exploration of the need of enterprises for intellectual property services and the mapping out of the missing but somewhere else already existing services and actions, which improve the competitiveness of SMEs. It is important to take into consideration that the new services should be sustainable even after the completion of the project.
Among the information activities special attention was paid to the seminars aiming at deepening the knowledge of rights enforcement. More and more entrepreneurs wish to conduct business with China, a country which has great economic potential, while they are not familiar with the Chinese legislation and legal practice in respect of intellectual property. The experts of the EU China IPR Helpdesk offer assistance in avoiding business failures by presenting lectures in enforcement seminars and case studies to highlight the potential pitfalls in business activities. The seminar co-organised with the Enterprise Europe Network in November focused on this topic.
With the cooperation of the 26 consortium partners the national offices further developed the joint website of InnovAccess (www.innovaccess.eu). The website provides information on the operation of the intellectual property system of each EU Member State, on the industrial property titles of protection, on procedural matters and on fees, deadlines and contacts.
The work of the eMARKS project, operating with an innovative image recognition function, serving to place
on the market the services of the eMAGE database containing registered figurative trademarks was completed in February 2009. As many as 120 users and decision-makers, among others, SMEs, customs and police officers, patent attorneys of Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Greece, Portugal and Hungary studied and commented on the service by means of a questionnaire in two rounds. By summarizing the findings the HPO prepared the document containing the assessment of the service.
User satisfaction with the service increased: in the first round almost 50% of the trial users, while in the second round 75% of them were satisfied or very satisfied with the eMAGE service. Willingness to use the service increased due to the technical improvements, 64% of the trial users would use the service. Compared to other existing search services, the respondents considered the search options and response time of eMAGE to be better or considerably better than those of the existing systems. Potential users considered the reliability, content and functionality of the service more important than efficiency, cost or usability. The eMARKS website offers detailed information on the project, the service and its assessment:
http://emarks.iisa-innov.com.
HPO has been raising awareness of Community titles of protection within the framework of the cooperation agreement concluded with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market in 2006. The most important tasks undertaken in the 2008 agreement were as follows:
The customer service of the HPO provided information on Community trademarks and designs in 10 000 cases within the framework of the project.
The 8th edition of the publication series “Community protection system” was published, presenting the legal practice of the Court of Justice and Court of First Instance of the European Communities in respect of the absolute grounds for refusal prescribed by the regulation on Community trademark.
The updating of the Community trademark data will be completed by the end of the first quarter of 2009.
International seminars were organised by the HPO on Community trademark protection in May and September. The development of the Community trademark module of the e-learning curriculum of trademarks commenced.
The new cooperation policy, being implemented within the framework of the European Patent Network (EPN) involving the substantial cooperation of national patent offices, projected the preparation of national action plans (NAP). The National Action Plan for Cooperation between the HPO and the EPO for 2008–2009 was signed in May 2008. In accordance with the cooperation agreement and the annual work plan, in the course of its service development, education and information activities, the HPO made methodological preparations for a new service enhancing added value and opened a new PATLIB centre. The staff of the HPO participated in the trainings in different topics offered by the European Patent Academy, and also, within the framework of the NAP the IP Pre-Diagnosis service was launched and awareness raising events were organised.
A key element of involving capital and managing innovation risk is the determination of the capital value of Hungarian-owned intellectual assets, which requires intellectual property valuation. As a next step of the research and development activities related to the valuation of intellectual assets in order to adapt the internationally used methodology to Hungarian circumstances, the HPO launched a series of symposia with the participation of domestic and international stakeholders. The first international symposium, entitled IP Valuation in Practice was organised by the HPO in November 2008. The symposium, which was attended by more than 80 experts, undertook to assess the practical experience gained in intellectual property valuation. Brand valuation was the subject of the symposium Eurobrand 2008 Budapest, which was coorganised by Hungarian and Austrian partners in September 2008.
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)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY EDUCATION
The HPO, through its several decade long training activities, plays a decisive role in disseminating intellectual property knowledge. The extension of the HPO’s competence, the industrial property training opportunities in tertiary education and the implementation of distance learning necessitated the replacement of Decree 78/1995 (XII. 29.) IKM on industrial property qualification by a new piece of legislation: Decree 2/2008 (VIII.22.) TNM of the minister without portfolio responsible for research and development on industrial property qualification entered into force on 30 August 2008.
The two-year long advanced level industrial property course organised by the HPO is an important pillar of the development of the domestic industrial property culture and of the bringing-up of a new generation of professionals. 42 persons completed successfully the second term of the course launched in the autumn of 2007. Interest was shown in the intermediate level industrial property training not only by the higher education institutions but also by enterprises and the public administration. Colleagues of law offices, the Hungarian Economic Development Centre (MAG), the National Office for Research and Technology, pharmaceutical companies, PATLIB centres and other enterprises took part in the intermediate level courses; the number of students was 28. The HPO provided the opportunity for obtaining industrial property qualification at the Károly Róbert College for the third time, which was achieved by 16 candidates passing the exams. At the Szolnok University College 15 students completed the intermediate level industrial property course. The HPO organised special courses on industrial property for students applying for the competition of preparation of dissertations and for the staff of the national industrial property information network. The number of students at the courses of the HPO increased significantly due also to a multipliertraining programme.
On the basis of cooperation agreements concluded with the most important universities of Hungary, as many as nearly one thousand students of 20 higher education institutions could acquire up-to-date intellectual property knowledge within the framework of graduate, post-graduate and distance learning trainings. The competition organised by the HPO for the preparation of dissertations has been successful for years. In 2008, 71 dissertations were received. The modern distance-learning programme, with the participation of 219 students, contributed to the spread of knowledge on intellectual property protection at the Ergonomics and Psychology Departments of the Budapest University of Technology and Economics, as well as at the University of Debrecen (complemented with in-practice training in research).
The training, connected with the IP4INNO project, aimed at organisations offering assistance to SMEs was completed successfully. The project, in cooperation of 20 organisations in 11 countries, intended to disseminate intellectual property knowledge and innovation promotion resources, by the train-the trainer method, in organisations supporting businesses (e.g. chambers, innovation organisations, industrial parks, business counsellors). The number of students at the courses organised country-wide in the framework of the project amounted to 429, and a further 60 persons participated in the courses for businessmen organised by Enterprise Europe Network (EPN) with the contribution of INNOSTART National Business and Innovation Centre.
Related to the higher education institutions as recognised knowledge hubs, the domestic network of industrial property information centres further expanded in 2008. Besides the centres of Miskolc, Szeged, Debrecen, Sopron and Győr, a new PATLIB centre opened at the Office for the Utilisation of Research Products and Technology Transfer, University of Pécs. The PATLIB centres in Hungary are members of the European patent information and documentation network, the PATLIB network. This network is operated with the professional support of the European Patent Office and has more than 300 members. The employees of the centres presented their intellectual property protection services at the Hungarian- Romanian bilateral meeting in June.
IX. Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:
http://mszh.hu
http://hpo.hu
X. Other relevant matters
INTERNATIONAL AND EUROPEAN COOPERATION
International cooperation focused on exercising rights and meeting obligations deriving from the European Patent Convention and Hungary’s membership in the European Union, as well as on international professional cooperation within the framework of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The majority of the HPO’s international activities concerned participation in the work of the European Patent Organisation and the European Union. Of all the missions abroad 62% represented trips connected with meetings of the professional bodies of these two organisations. The management efficiency of the missions is shown by the fact that the costs of 53% of the trips were entirely or partially reimbursed by the receiving organisations.
DUTIES DERIVING FROM MEMBERSHIP IN THE EUROPEAN UNION
The HPO established close cooperation with the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market of the European Union (OHIM) and fulfilled its obligations as an EU Member State. Hungary’s representative in the Administrative Board of OHIM is the legal vice-president of the HPO, and the alternate representative is the head of the Trademark, Model and Design Department. In 2008, the Administrative Board and the Budget Committee held two ordinary meetings each, and the Administrative Board and the Budget Committee had an extraordinary joint meeting. Liaison meetings were held three times, and one meeting took place between OHIM and the national experts. Since 1 May 2004, Hungary has been represented in the Administrative Council of the Community Plant Variety Office by two Government officials, one of them being the technical vice-president of the HPO.
The HPO was represented at the meetings of the Working Party on Intellectual Property of the Council of the European Union, at the regulation committees of the European Commission and at other meetings of experts on 30 occasions. The meetings were held in the following topics: Council Working Party meetings on copyright and related rights, on patent law, on litigation, on trademarks; experts’ committee meetings on rights enforcement, on Community trademark fees, on the INFOSOC directive, on the fight against counterfeiting and piracy, on the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). In the framework of the EU’s CARDS programme (Community Assistance for Reconstruction, Development and Stabilisation programme – in support of the countries of the West-Balkans), the HPO, upon request, coordinated the professional tasks as a “donor” country. Within the framework of the EU TAIEX programme, the HPO, upon request, made presentations on the issues of copyright and industrial property, and received experts from abroad.
COOPERATION WITHIN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE WORLD INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY ORGANIZATION
The HPO represented Hungary in the international cooperation under the aegis of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). As in previous years, the representatives of the HPO regularly took part in the meetings of the standing committees of WIPO. In 2008, the HPO ensured Hungarian participation in the following meetings: 44th series of meetings of the Assemblies of the Member States of WIPO, the extraordinary meeting of the Assemblies of the Member States, informal meetings of the Coordination Committee, the extraordinary meeting thereof, meeting of the Financial and Budget Committee, Standardisation and Documentation Working Group meeting of the Standing Committee on Information Technology, meetings of the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights, meetings of the Administrative and Legal Com- mittee, Consultative Committee and Council of UPOV, meetings of the Ad Hoc Working Group on the Legal Development of the Madrid System, meetings of the Preparatory Working Group of the Committee of Experts of the Nice Union, meetings of the Standing Committee on Trademarks, Industrial Designs and Geographical Indications, as well as the meetings of the Intergovernmental Committee on Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore. From 23 to 25 June, co-organised by WIPO, Biopolisz Innovation Services Ltd., Szeged and the HPO, a regional workshop was held on industrial property management and successful technology licensing at universities and research centres with the participation of foreign and Hungarian speakers. Upon the initiative of WIPO, on 16 December an inter-regional workshop was organised in the HPO, entitled Management of academic IP and early-stage innovation in transitional countries.
REGIONAL AND BILATERAL COOPERATION
The heads of the industrial property offices of the “Visegrad countries” had their annual meeting in Gdansk in May 2008. On several occasions, experts’ meetings were held on CETMOS, the regional trademark search service offered with the coordination of the Austrian and Hungarian offices and with the participation of nine Central and Eastern European countries. The 6th Hungarian-Romanian regional intellectual property meeting took place in Szeged in June.
As regards bilateral interinstitutional meetings, the HPO was visited by delegations from the State Patent Service of the Kyrgyz Republic, the National Institute of Intellectual Property of Portugal, the Austrian Patent Office, as well as by the director generals of the Finnish Patent and Trademark Registration Office and the Icelandic Patent Office. Delegations of the HPO paid visits to the French Intellectual Property Institute and the UK Intellectual Property Office.