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The Office also held 47 IP clinics in 2017, which give an opportunity to the public, inventors, entrepreneurs and business people to discuss on a one -to-one basis with Patents Office staff, matters concerning IP applications they intend to make or have already made to the Office. Pre-filing interventions are carried out by examiners for non-represented applicants who do not fully understand the requirements of the Patents Act and Rules. This approach has been found to be very helpful in providing basic guidance on procedures and forms required for the registration of IP rights, the processes of obtaining IP protection in Ireland or abroad. Assistance in constructing a do-it-yourself search strategy for patents and accessing and using online patent databases is also provided.
Re-introduction of substantive examination
The Patents (Amendment) Rules 2017 (S.I. No 206 of 2017)re-introduced substantive examination of Irish patent applications. The rules set out the procedural changes to support substantive examination including the submission of a search report and written opinion as to patentability of an invention. Third party observations to the Controller in relation to the patentability of applications are also provided for.
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Available patent documents
A project to electronically archive Irish national patent documents continued throughout 2017. The aim of the current project is to scan all available patent specification documents from the 1960s to the early 2000s, and to make them available to the public via our website. It is estimated that there are approximately 58,000 documents to be scanned. This project will facilitate ease of access to the data for both the public and for staff, as well as reducing the requirement for storage space for paper files. The project continued in 2017 with over 38,000 documents scanned to date. It is estimated that the project will take another 2 years to complete. As a cost saving measure and to allow continued access to the documents, the Office decided not to outsource this work but use its own internal staff resources and equipment.
PTOLEMY Developments
In relation to improving technological efficiencies, five substantive enhancements to the PTOLEMY administration system were developed during the year. All of these were aimed at improving operational efficiency and ensuring the Office’s core business systems remain current. The Office also migrated its servers to a new off-site infrastructure in 2017, with a more modern operating system. The Office also commenced the migration from Windows to Linux webservers.
E-Services
The Irish Patent Office is currently developing an e-filing system for Patents and Supplementary Protection Certificates (having introduced e-filing of trade mark applications in 2014, design e-filing in 2015). This is predicted to have a go-live date of late 2018.
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The Office is currently working on the implementation of an E-Services project which will provide for online payment of all IP fees.
Upgrade of website
An upgrade of the website infrastructure and webservers was carried out in order to replace out of date and unsupported operating systems. A new content management system was also put in place to facilitate refinement of web pages, thus expanding capabilities to manage graphics, photos, video, audio, etc. to provide an improved service to users.
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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
II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
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None to report.
III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE
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Nothing to report.
IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE
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Nothing to report.
V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION
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Nothing to report.
VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION
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Nothing further to report.
VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS
Nothing further to report.
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