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The Office has also developed a ‘Patent Specification Template Tool’ which will assist applicants (unrepresented by an Agent) to complete and fully understand the requirements of a patent application to be filed. It will produce four fully detailed specification sections to be filed electronically at the Office. These These two projects have been commenced simultaneously and are predicted to have a go-live date of late 2018.
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National full term Patent filings received during 2017 decreased by 8% on 2016 (from 149 to 137) while the number of short term patent applications filed also decreased by 5% on 2016 (from 138 to 131).
The presence of IP intensive firms in the export led, FDI and multinational sectors does mean that first patent filings are unlikely to be Irish National filings. This is because many Irish based foreign owned firms which develop IP in Ireland often have a policy of filing applications to protect those IP rights in foreign markets through their parent company which is headquartered abroad. The decrease in national patent filings does not necessarily reflect the extent to which Irish based firms or inventors are engaged in innovative activity as firms may choose to file via the European route or using the PCT route rather than through the national office.
As at 31 December 2017, there were a total of 1,166 pending applications on hand. Of these, 180 applications were awaiting the submission of evidence of novelty.
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The number of applications received from applicants in the State was 182 compared with 22 in 2016.
The Office acts as a receiving office for European (EP) applications and also for applications filed under the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT). The number of EP applications filed in 2017 was 2. The number of PCT applications filed decreased from 23 in 2016 to 15 in 2017.
The number of European patent applications filed with the EPO in 2017 and designating Ireland was 165,629, an increase on the 2016 figure of 159,358.
Other general patent statistics include:
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Patents in force 169453
National applications were filed in the following technical fields in 2017, according to the classes of the International Patent Classification (IPC):
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G – Physics – 13.84%
H – Electricity – 9.43%
A total of 63 requests for Supplementary Protection Certificates were received during the year under the European Communities (Supplementary Protection Certificates) Regulations, 1992 (medicinal) and 1996 (plant protection products). During the year, 74 certificates were granted (medicinal and plant protection), 10 were rejected and 11 requests were withdrawn. At the end of the year there were 175 requests pending.
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Our website offers a current news page, and news archive, which can be found at: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/News
Statistics related to patents at the Intellectual Property Office can be accessed through the annual reports, annual reviews and facts and figures at:https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Publications/Annual-Reports
Information on filing, including a patent application guide and other materials for users, is available from the following web page: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Patents/How-to-Apply
Information regarding the patent procedure, including post examination and post grant, can be found at: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Publications/Information-Booklets
Information regarding dispute resolution, including hearings relating to patents and SPCs can be found at: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Publications/Written-Grounds
A link to the IE patent journal can be found at: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Publications/Download-a-Journal
A link to electronic searchable patent journals (from 2002 onwards) can be found at:https://webjournal.patentsoffice.ie
Information regarding the current patent legislation (Act and Rules) is available from: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Legislation
Information regarding fees, payments and our online fee payments module are available at: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Payments/Fees
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Other business practices and procedures are covered by web pages accessible from the main patents page: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Patents
Information regarding protection of patents outside the IE jurisdiction is available at: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Patents/Protection-Abroad
The Irish national patent register may be searched by application or grant number at:https://eregister.patentsoffice.ie/PTRegNr.aspx
The Irish national patent register may also be searched over several fields such as: title/abstract; application, grant or priority number; application date range; grant date range; legal status; IPC; inventor name; applicant name; etc. at:https://eregister.patentsoffice.ie/query/PTQuery.aspx
A link to the EPO search facility Espacenet, the EP Patent Register and WIPO Patentscope database is provided from: https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Patents/Patent-Searching
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The PDF documents are then transferred via Secure File Transfer Protocol (SFTP) to the EPO. This is done on a weekly basis and currently includes a separate ST.36 XML file for the bibliographical and full text abstract data.
(2) Patents Office Journal.
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From 2012 the Patents Office Journal became searchable online with full patent document retrieval, and links to Espacenet for EP designating Ireland documents. The HTML version was also modified to allow full bibliographic data access and document retrieval.
(3) ESPACENET, EPOQUE etc.
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The full text, drawings and bibliographic data of all newly published Irish patent applications and granted patents is published on the EPOQUE and Espacenet system soon after the given publication date.
(4) Annual Report
A report, providing information on statistics, IP application trends, office activities, office projects, training, patent information dissemination, etc. is published on a yearly basis. It is provided both in hard copy and electronically on our website.
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