Annual Technical Report 2009 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by Slovakia (CWS/ATR/ID/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.

The expression "industrial designs" covers industrial designs and models. Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in this series of Annual Technical Reports.

I. Evolution of registration activities

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to the previous year

94 applications for industrial designs were filed with the Office in 2009. It is in total 19.7 % decrease in comparison with 2008. The most active foreign applicants were from the Czech Republic (18) and Sweden (7).

Slovak applicants filed 67 applications (decrease by 21.2%). The share of domestic applications was 71.3%.

In 2009 116 designs was registered, that is 24.7% more than in 2008.

On December 31, 2009 there were 1 255 valid national designs.

For comparison there is statistics of years 2005 - 2009 in industrial designs area:

Designstatistics_2009

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to industrial designs

URL to Annual Technical Reports on Designs:
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 industrial design documents and of secondary sources of industrial design information, i.e., official gazettes

Publishing, including printing, copying techniques and electronic printing

Publication of industrial designs

The Office publishes registered industrial designs in the Official Gazette.

Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR"

Industrial design 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 January 2008 (number of Gazette 1/2008). In 2009 the Gazette had a circulation of 150 copies, of which 56 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, contains searchable data, which are regularly updated. The Official Gazette was distributed into 30 countries including EPO and WIPO within international exchange.

The following numbers of industrial designs were published in the Official Gazette 2009:

108 registered industrial designs
118 registered industrial designs with the extended term of validity

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 design documents.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of industrial design information

The Gazette contains industrial design announcements arranged in following main chapters:

- list of registered industrial designs (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of registered industrial designs (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
- list of registered industrial designs with extended term of validity (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of registered industrial designs with extended term of validity (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
- list of registered industrial designs with postponed publishing (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of registered industrial designs with postponed publishing (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
- list of published registered industrial designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (numerical series with classification symbols)
- bibliographic data of published registered industrial designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (arranged according to the classes of Locarno Classification)
- official decisions (lapse (expiration), etc.)
- assignments and transfers of rights and other changes of owners
- cancellation of industrial designs registration
- partial cancellation of industrial designs registration
- registration of licensing contracts
- termination of licensing contracts
- right of lien
- corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online industrial design gazettes and to other sources of industrial design information, including download of bulk industrial design 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

- "Design Classifications" contains Slovak version of 9th edition of Locarno Classification (fully searchable), links to other classifications systems for classifying designs used in the world and other useful information http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia-dizajny

- "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 industrial design information according to the classification systems applied

Classification and reclassification activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification (please indicate whether industrial designs are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)

The current version of the International Classification for Industrial Design (Locarno Classification) is used for classifying of industrial designs, which are classified by Office´s experts.

Bibliographic data and processing

The WIPO Standard ST.80 is used for industrial design 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. Search file establishment and upkeep

File building

Industrial design search file of the Office comprises the industrial design collection of the Slovak Republic and also former Czechoslovak Republic. The IPO SR built in 2009 the manual industrial design search system in the card catalogue form, arranged according to international industrial design classification, updated regularly.

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 industrial design gazettes from the following states and organizations: AT, BA, BE, BG, BR, BX, CH, CZ, DE, EE, FR, GB, HR, HU, IT, LT, LV, MD, MK, PL, PT, RO, RU, SI, UA, US a WIPO.

V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs

In-house systems (online/offline)

The online industrial design database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national industrial design searches and purposes of proceedings on industrial design 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 industrial designs.

External databases

Czech registered industrial designs database in the Internet
WIPO International Design Bulletin CD-ROM
OHIM - Industrial Designs Database
Hague Express Database
National databases USPTO and IPOUK

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

The Office automation management system contains industrial designs register (data since 1991) 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), data 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 industrial design information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering designs, 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 industrial design 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 upon request - orders in written and online form
- registry information provided in the reading room
- CD-ROM workstations available in the reading room


Industrial design 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)
- Locarno Classification (9-th edition)
- design classifications and related information
- annual technical reports on design 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.upv.sk/index2.php?lang=en&idd=10&idd2=. (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 filing.

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 industrial design 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 industrial designs; opposition and appeal procedures related to industrial designs; etc.

Webregisters
http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=en

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 design register, which is kept by the Office with the possibility of simple and advanced search or browsing results. Data concerning in particular pending design applications, all filed applications or registered designs 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., industrial design search service(s) and industrial design 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 industrial design documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of industrial design information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes

In 2009 followed the mutual exchange of industrial design information in the form of official gazettes between the IPO SR and other offices also international organizations, including the WIPO.

Exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., data contained on CD-ROM or magnetic tape

The IPO SR received from JPO registered industrial designs and from USPTO granted design patents stored on CD-ROM in the past year.

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, 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 industrial designs

Information on legislation related to designs

- 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 industrial design-related news regarding the Office

Design-related news
http://www.upv.sk

X. Other relevant matters