Annual Technical Report on Patent Information Activities in 2014 submitted by Croatia

I. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN PATENT INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization

The main policies and plans of the Croatian State Intellectual Property Office given in the Annual Work Plan for 2014 were:

-      to secure quality, efficient and financially acceptable procedure for the granting of patents, registration of TPP and of SCP by increasing the efficiency of business processes and in the execution of duties and tasks and by establishing a comprehensive system of formal tools for managing the performance and quality of jobs;

-      to increase the number of domestic users of the system of intellectual property protection in the field of patents through reviewing the existing technical and information services and by improving the quality and effectiveness of promotional activities through cooperation with relevant regional and international organizations.

The Office has begun a major project of migrating data and functionality from the existing system to a new, open-source platform which will improve a number of services of the Office.

New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks

In 2014 the SIPO Croatia actively participated in cooperation with the European Patent Office (EPO) within the Bilateral Co-operation Plan for 2013-2015 in the following Projects:

-           Patent Translate service - further development of the European language technology service - Patent Translate, that was launched in January 2014 (available through the EPO online patent database Espacenet and European Publication Server) for the reason of improving the quality of translations from Croatian language to English and vice versa;

-           Federative European Patent Register - continuation of activities related to the creation of Federative European Patent Register for improving the access to information about the legal status of a granted/validated European patent. Croatia is one of the countries whose Register is deeply linked via European Patent Register, working on its integration into the second phase, so called parallel retrieval.

Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year

In order to facilitate the access to European patent information by providing a harmonised patent search and retrieval service to their user, SIPO is part of the Espacenet service, which is much appreciated patent information service among its users. The EPO plans to merge two current versions – Espacenet level 1 (national data) and level 2 (worldwide data collected by the EPO) into new Espacenet service, and SIPO is actively engaged in this project. However, most of activities in this project were implemented in previous annual periods. SIPO continuously monitors the quality and the completeness of the documents and data. Successfully implemented machine translation facility by the European language technology service for patents enables users all over Europe to have access to Croatian patent documents in their own language.  

EPO intends to provide a harmonised Europe-wide entry point to access the national registers of the participating member states by establishing Federative European Patent Register for improving the access to information about the legal status of a granted/validated European patent. Croatia is one of the countries whose Register is deeply linked via European Patent Register, currently working on its integration into the second phase, so called parallel retrieval.

Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes

Patent protection in the Republic of Croatia can be achieved via the national or the regional route. Protection can be granted via the national route either by directly filing the patent application with the Office or by entry of the international application into the national phase on the basis of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), wherein the Office decides whether to grant patent protection or not. Protection via the regional route can be achieved by filing a European patent application to the European Patent Office (EPO) in accordance with the European Patent Convention. In this case, the European Patent Office makes the decision whether to grant the patent or not, whereas the Office only conducts formal procedures in relation to the entry of the patent into the patent register maintained by the Office.

In 2014, a total of 200 patent applications were filed with the Office via national route, which is the lowest recorded annual number of applications via the national route and represents a decrease of 21% compared to the previous year.

Out of that number, a total of 170 applications were filed by resident applicants, representing a 26% decrease in the number of applications compared to the 2013. It is estimated that the perennial decreasing trend in relation to the number of applications by domestic applicants in national procedure is primarily a consequence of longer negative economic trends in the country, since a similar negative trend in relation to the number of applications filed by Croatian applicants is recorded by the European Patent Office as well.

The number of resident legal persons (companies) that filed a patent application via the national route in 2014 is also lower compared to the previous year – only 25 applications were filed compared to the 31 filed in the previous year, whereas the number of natural persons as applicants decreased by 27% – from 199 to 145. Amongst resident applicants, natural persons are still significantly prevailing, making a high 86% of the total number of resident applicants.

Non-resident applicants filed a total of 30 applications via the national route – 4 were filed by natural and 26 were filed by legal persons, wherein the number of applications by non-resident legal persons (companies) was doubled compared to the previous year.

The number of international applications that entered into the national phase of procedure in the Republic of Croatia via the PCT was higher in 2014 in relation to the previous year, 14 applications were filed compared to the 9 filed in 2013.

The number of requests for the extension of European patent applications to the Republic of Croatia on the basis of the Agreement on Cooperation in the Field of Patents between the Government of the Republic of Croatia and the European Patent Organization (Cooperation and Extension Agreement), which was in force between 2004 and 2008, published in the official gazette of the European Patent Office during 2014, was 133, which is 52% less compared to the 282 requests in the previous year.

In 2014, 133 requests were filed for entry of the extended European patents according to the same Agreement, which is significantly less (36%) compared to 207 requests filed in the previous year.

The mentioned continued decrease in the number of requests according to the Agreement was expected considering the application of the European Patent Convention (EPC) in the Republic of Croatia as of 1 January 2008, whereas by its entry into force the Cooperation and Extension Agreement ceased to be valid. Consequently, a further increase in the number of requests for entry of European patents according to the EPC is expected.

In 2014, the number of requests for entry of the European patents on the basis of the EPC was higher, as was expected, reaching 939 requests, which is a 21% increase compared to the 774 requests from the previous year.

49 international patent applications were filed by national applicants with the Office, as the PCT receiving office, which represents a 32% increase compared to the previous year and points to a recovery in relation to the annual number of these applications.

The majority of applications by resident applicants in national proceedings was filed in the following technical fields in 2014, according to the classes of the International Patent Classification (IPC): G01-G12 (measuring) 11.2%; A41-A47 (personal or domestic articles) 10.6%; B60-B68 (transportation) 10.0%; A61 (preparations for medical or dental purposes) 8.2%; F21-F28 (lighting and heating) 6.5%; E01-E06 (fixed constructions) 5.3%; F01-F04 (machines and engines) 5.3%; H01-H02 (electricity) 4.7%.

The majority of applications by non-resident applicants directly filed with the Office in 2014 were filed in the following IPC classes: A61 (preparations for medical or dental purposes) 26.7%; F01-F04 (machines and engines) 16.7%; G01-G12 (measuring) 10.0%; C07 (organic chemistry) 6.7%

During 2014, a total of 1128 patents was entered into the register of the Office, out of which 162 (14%) were patents granted in national proceedings, and 966 (86%) were patents granted in regional proceedings or European patents with effect in the Republic of Croatia.

The total annual number of patents entered into the register was 4% lower compared to the previous year, whereas the number of patents granted in national proceedings was 30% lower, while the number of European patents increased by 2.5%.

According to the structure of the holders of European patents entered into the register of the Office in 2014, non-resident legal persons make as much as 95%, whereas among the holders there is only one resident legal and one resident natural person..

At the end of 2014, a total of 5213 patents were valid in Croatia, out of which 382 were consensual patents. Compared to the previous year, the total number of valid patents was higher by approximately 12%. Thereby 1491 valid patents were granted in national procedure.

As per the technical fields, the majority of valid patents granted via the national route are in IPC classes C07 (organic chemistry) 20.4%; A61 (preparations for medical or dental purposes) 22.4%; B60-B68 (transportation) 7.4%; and E01-E06 (fixed constructions) 7.3%.

Since becoming a member of the European Union, it is possible to grant a Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) in Croatia. In addition, the duration of the SPC can be prolonged by 6 months if the protection relates to a medicinal product for pediatric use.

A total of 22 applications for issuing supplementary protection certificates were filed in 2014..

Out of a total of 90 SPC applications filed during 2013 and 2014, 87 of them relate to medicinal products, whereas only 3 relate to plant protection products.

During 2014, a total of 9 SPCs was granted and they will enter into force immediately following the expiry of underlying patents, provided maintenance fees are duly paid. All 9 SPCs relate to medicinal products.

Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.

Annual report:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/o-zavodu/godisnje-izvjesce/arhiva-g-i/ (HR)

http://www.dziv.hr/en/about-sipo/annual-report/archive/ (EN)

Statistics:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/o-zavodu/statistika-ind-vlasnistva/ (HR)

http://www.dziv.hr/en/about-sipo/ip-statistics/ (EN)

Official gazette:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/glasnik-hgiv/ (HR)

http://www.dziv.hr/en/the-croatian-intellectual-property-gazette/ (EN)

News:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/novosti/ (HR)

http://www.dziv.hr/en/news/ (EN)

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs

Filing on paper (instructions, Patent Examination Guidelines):

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/eng/Pat_pub/Patent/guidelines-pat-en.pdf

E-filing:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/e-usluge/e-prijava/

International Patent Classification (HR, EN):

http://www.dziv.hr:8080/mkp/index.php

Guidelines for patent search and examination:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/prirucnik-za-ispitivanje-patenata/

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

The application dossier is available in the Office database containing public data from Registers (Patent Applications Register, Patent Register and SPC Register), accessible through the Office website, free of charge. The Office maintains a complete history of its patent files in paper form and all information for patents applied from 2000 to date in electronic form.

Free of charge searchable data base containing published information on patents applied for or granted is available at:

http://www.dziv.hr/en/e-services/on-line-database-search/patents/

A range of search options available: Publication number; Croatian title; Publication date; IPC; Inventor; Applicant; Applicant/Holder (State); English title; Application date; Date and number of earlier application from the former FPO; European patent application/publication number; European patent application date; Priority - country/application number/application date; PCT - application/publication number; PCT - application/publication date, Patent representative, Abstract

Classification¹, preclassification² (if applicable), reclassification³ activities; classification systems used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)); matters concerning indexing of patent information

Published patent applications and granted patents are classified by the Office according to the latest version of IPC advanced level.

The indexing schemes are not used by the examiners when classifying patent documents

The reclassification has been done regularly through the special tool developed in house. The Office uses the content of the latest IPC Validity file (201401) for validating IPC symbols.

Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents

Titles of all national applications are translated into English language and used for on-line database, offered by the Office.

Other activities

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III. SOURCES OF PATENT INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Main types of publications of the Office (patent applications, full text, first pages, abstracts, bibliographic data, granted patents, etc.), medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)

Official Gazette :

http://www.dziv.hr/en/the-croatian-intellectual-property-gazette

Patent Search:

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/e-usluge/pretrazivanje-baza-podataka/patent/

http://www.dziv.hr/en/e-services/on-line-database-search/patents/

Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.

Since May 2009 the Office no longer publishes the Gazette on paper but only electronically. Current issue and archive of all issues since May 2009 are available free of charge at the Office's web site. Upon order and against payment Office provides issues of the Gazette on digital carrier. Since October 2013 the Official Gazette is published every two weeks (previously once a month).

Official Gazette contains the following published information on patents: Publication of patent applications, Patent application indexes by numbers, classification symbols and applicants, publication of requests for the grant of a patent on the basis of the substantive examination procedure of patent applications, publication of requests for the grant of a patent without the substantive examination of patent applications (Consensual Patents), publication of granted patents and consensual patents, Patent /consensual patent indexes by numbers, classification symbols and owners, Publication of Record of Changes to the respective Register, Publication of the proposals for the Restitutio in Integrum and Continued Processing, publication of the lapse of Patents/Consensual Patents, Publication of a Declaration of Nullity of Patents, Publication of Correction of deficiencies in the published data, publication of Requests for the Extension of the European Patent Applications, publication of European patent application indexes by numbers, classification symbols and applicants, Publication of extended European patents, Lapse of extended European patents, Publication of European Patents, European patent index by numbers, classification and owners, Lapse of European Patents, Corrections of Data to Published European Patents, Publication of Requests for Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPC) and of its extension, Publication of indications concerning the grant of SPC and its refusal, publication of the lapse of SPC, publication of indications concerning the grant of topographies of semiconductor products.

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/glasnik-hgiv/

http://www.dziv.hr/en/the-croatian-intellectual-property-gazette/

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases

Patent Register available to examiners and formality officers is used for filing all bibliographic data concerning the particular patent. The Register is interlinked with the electronic depository of the patent documents. The coverage of the national patent documents in electronic form is complete since year 1991 when the Office was established. The patent document collection is maintained by an in-house developed document management system.

For the examiners’ access to foreign patent documents Epoque system of the European Patent Office is used.

Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to external users, conditions of access (e.g., free of charge, subscription, etc.)

General information regarding the Patents and patent protection procedures is provided free of charge. It can be obtained face-to-face at the Office's informationcentre (acronym INCENTIV), by phone, via fax, e-mail or posted letter, and are also available at the Office's web site: http://www.dziv.hr/en/intellectual-property-protection/patents/the-application-process/.
Access to the patent document collection for external users is provided free of charge by a public database containing published data and documents (http://www.dziv.hr/en/e-services/on-line-database-search/patents/)
National patent collection and related data are also publicly accessible free of charge through Espacenet, a public patent document service of the European Patent Office containing a worldwide set of national patent collections (http://hr.espacenet.com/ or at EPO). Links to other on-line available non-commercial databases are provided at http://www.dziv.hr/en/sipo-information-services/non-commercial-ip-db

Different types of professional search services of patent databases (http://www.dziv.hr/en/sipo-information-services/search-services-patent/), standard and tailor-made, and registry extracts are available to users upon request and payment at INCENTIV (http://www.dziv.hr/en/sipo-information-services/search-services-patent/).

Public computers in the INCENTIV premises are available to users free-of-charge for on-line database searches and web browsing.

Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)

Detailed legal status information is available in the Patent Register, accessible only to the Office staff, while the basic information on the legal status (e.g. application, granted (in force), lapsed) are publicly available in the public patent database accessible by the Office's web site: http://www.dziv.hr/en/e-services/on-line-database-search/patents/.

Other sources

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IV. ICT SUPPORT TO SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO PATENT INFORMATION CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

Specific software tools supporting business procedures within the Office: general description, characteristics, advantages, possible improvements

A wide set of software tools has been developed in-house to support business procedures of the Office, providing a range of tools for efficient processing of the applications and other documents. Office's software system is in the process of migration to a new (open-source platform)

Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office

- 20Mbit/s leased line used for Internet connection,

-CISCO Network Equipment (LAN based on Fast Ethernet - 1000/100/10 Mbit/s).

SERVERS:

All servers are virtualized under VMware (except mail server)

-VMware vSphere 5.5 Essentials Plus Kit for 3 hosts, 192 GB RAM

-Physical Servers:         -Dell PowerEdge  R610 64GRAM; 12 x CPU Intel Xeon E5645

                                      -Dell PowerEdge  R620 64GRAM; 8 x CPU Intel Xeon E5645

                                      -Dell PowerEdge  R620 64GRAM; 8 x CPU Intel Xeon E5645

Virtualized servers are on the following operating systems:

-  Win SERVER 2008 R2 Enterprise

-  Win SERVER 2003 St. Ed.

-  Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6

-  SUSE Linux Enterprise 10

-  Debian GNU/Linux 6

Mail Server:

- MS Exchange 2010 Server Enterprise,

- Physical Server : Fujitsu RX300 S5

- OS Win SERVER 2008 R2 Enterprise

Workstations:

-  Desktop-PC Pentium IV with WIN XP PROF or WIN 7., Notebooks – OS – MS WIN 7 or WIN8.

Storage

-NAS

-NetApp   DATA ONTAP Release 8.0.2P4

-IBM N3400, 12x600GB SAS, 24x 1TB SATA disks

Backup software

-SYMC BACKUP EXEC 2012 Server Win Per Server Bndl

-SYMC BACKUP EXEC 2012 Option Ndmp Win Per Server

Backup tape device 

- Dell PowerVault TL2000

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

The bibliographic data are stored in patent database and patent documents are stored in a network file directory. They are interlinked by different software tools. Data coverage is a complete set of patent data since year 1991 (when the Office was established).

Establishment and maintenance of electronic search file: file building, updating, storage, documents from other offices included in the search file

Examiners search national Patent Register for national patent documentation. Epoque system  of the EPO is the main source of foreign documentation.Furthermore, the Office receives certain foreign patent documents on CD and DVD. Official bulletins of foreign offices are mostly available in electronic format and used as such if required.

Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)

Electronic Patent Register is used for filing all bibliographic data concerning the particular patent application or granted patent. All patent changes (change of ownership, change of name, address, etc.) are recorded and are maintained by Patent Register user interface. Every change of legal status is visible in Patent Register. The Patent Register enables direct access (from a certain case) to the relevant case within the EPO on-line registers (on the basis of the EP number) and WIPO registers (on the basis of the PCT number).

The Patent Register enables generation of various user defined reports and certificates (Priority Certificate).

The Patent Register is a part of the in-house developed electronic document management system. All incoming and outgoing documents are scanned in Adobe Acrobat and entered into document management system.

MS Word is used for automatic generation of communications to the applicant, based on predefined templates. MS Excel is used for (automatic) generation of different reports, such as public and internal statistic report and reports for other purposes (improving efficiency of patent processes).

Other matters

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V. PROMOTION ACTIVITIES AIMED TO SUPPORT USERS IN ACCESS AND EFFICIENT USE OF PATENT INFORMATION

Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries

The Patent Library (http://www.dziv.hr/en/sipo-information-services/library/) operates within the Office's Information Centre (acronym INCENTIV). Library public services include access to the collections and in the reading room, available to public during the working hours of INCENTIV. Library public services include access to the collections and the reading room, available to public during the working hours of INCENTIV. Library collections are available at the Library premises and on-line at the Office’s web page (http://knjiznica.dziv.hr/). User inquiries and reservation requests could also be made via e-mail (knjiznica@dziv.hr). The collections contain numerous books and periodicals, primarily in the field of IP or related fields, and are catalogued in the regularly maintained database.

Publications related to different business procedures and patent information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/eng/intellectual/fees_patents.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/pristojbe/zahtjev_oslob_plac_up.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/pristojbe/Letak_uplatnica_1.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/pristojbe/Letak_uplatnica_2.pdf

http://it-app.dziv.hr/Uplatnice/

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/pristojbe/patenti.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/pristojbe/prist_trosk_pregled_PATENT.html

http://www.dziv.hr/hr/prirucnik-za-ispitivanje-patenata/

http://www.dziv.hr:8080/mkp/index.php

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/obrasci/patent/brosura_patent.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/obrasci/patent/brosura_espacenet_web.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/obrasci/patent/Letak_PATENT_web.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/obrasci/patent/EU_patent.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/eng/Pat_pub/Patent/Letak_patent_EN.pdf

http://www.dziv.hr/files/File/eng/Pat_pub/Patent/guidelines-pat-en.pdf

The Patent Library:

http://www.dziv.hr/en/sipo-information-services/library/ & http://www.dziv.hr/hr/informacije-usluge/knjiznica/

Office's initiatives on providing foreign patent information in the local language(s) (e.g., machine translation tools, translation of abstracts)

In 2014 the SIPO Croatia actively participated in cooperation with the European Patent Office (EPO) in the project Patent Translate service - further development of the European language technology service - Patent Translate, that was launched in January 2014 (available through the EPO online patent database Espacenet and European Publication Server) for the reason of improving the quality of translations from Croatian language to English and vice versa.

Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.

The Office has a developed cooperation with a range of partners, including universities, technology and innovation support centers, development agencies etc.

Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.

Seminars, Workshops and Lectures on Intellectual Property for Academic Community in 2014

• Lectures “Infringements of Intellectual Property Rights “, within the specialization course of the Police Academy - Zagreb, 20 January 2014 and  24 March 2014.
• Workshop “Intellectual Property Data Base Searches “at the Faculty of Chemical Engineering and Technology - Zagreb, 18 February 2014.
• Seminar on intellectual property for students and staff of the Faculty of Civil Engineering, Architecture and Geodesy - Split, 4 March 2014.
• Lecture “Protection of Intellectual Property “, within the manifestation “Engineers’ Days” at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computing - Zagreb, 18 March 2014.
• Lecture on intellectual property for students of the Chemical Department of the Faculty of Science - Zagreb, 25 October 2014.
• Seminar for students of the Faculty of Economics and Tourism University in Pula - Zagreb, 11 December 2014.
• Lecture “Intellectual Property, Innovations and Technology Transfer in the Knowledge Based Economy “ within the workshop „Intellectual Property Law and Patent Applications in the EU “, in the framework of the Science and Innovation Investment Fund (SIIF) - Zagreb, 22 May 2014.

Lectures for Entrepreneurs and Small and Medium Enterprises in 2014

• Lecture “Use of Intellectual Property in Business Operations of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises “ - Pula, 6 February 2014.
• Series of lectures on the application of intellectual property in business and assessing the potential of intellectual property in cooperation with the Croatian Chamber of Commerce, intended for representatives of small and medium-sized enterprises - Split, Osijek, Zagreb, Karlovac, February - April 2014.
• Lecture “Protection of Intellectual Property and its Use in Business “, within the conference “Protect your Idea by JCI“ - Zagreb, 20 September 2014.
• Lecture “Overview of Intellectual Property Rights and the International System of Protection “, within the seminar “Intellectual Property and International Business” - Zagreb, 25 November 2014.
• Seminars and workshops for the representatives of state institutions and judicial bodies in 2014
• Workshop for judges "Intellectual Property Rights – Basic Module ", in cooperation with the Judicial Academy -  Zagreb, 3 October 2014.
• Lecture “Basics of Intellectual Property“, for employees of the Technology Department of the Ministry of Science, Education and Sports - Zagreb, 19 December 2014.

Public Seminars and Distance Learning Courses organized in 2014:

• General Course on Intellectual Property (DL-101HR) – 4 February – 16 April 2014 and 15 September – 20 November 2014.
• WIPO’s International Summer School on Intellectual Property in Croatia – Dubrovnik, 26 May – 6 June 2014.

Promotional events organized in 2014:

Public Events in which the Office Participated

• Public events within the action Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy – Slavonski Brod, 14 February 2014; Varaždin, 14 June 2014; Zaprešić, 13 December 2014.
• 12th International Innovation Exhibition ARCA 2014 - Zagreb, 15 – 18 October 2014.

Professional and Promotional Events in which the Office Participated

• Round table “From an Idea to the Commercialization of Innovations” - Pula, 6 February 2014.
• National conference of the project “Improving Information to the Croatian Business Community BIZimpact II”; Presentation of the mini guide ““With Intellectual Property to Successful Business “ – Zagreb, 28 February 2014.
• 5th Intellectual Property Rights Conference “Intelektiv“ - Zagreb, 28 May 2014.
• Conferences regarding the presentation of results of the EVLIA project; Round table on the results and the perspective of the methodology resulting from  Evlia project - Zagreb, 16 December 2014.

Professional and Promotional Events in the Co/organization of the Office

• Presentation of the European Observatory for the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights - Zagreb, 26 November 2014.
• Round table “European Patent Reform and Expected Benefits for Users” - Zagreb, 28 November 2014.

Other activities

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VI. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF PATENT INFORMATION

International exchange and sharing of patent information in machine-readable form, e.g., priority documents, bibliographic data, abstracts, search reports, full text information

The Office exchanges its patent data in machine –readable form with the European Patent Office. All published documents are sent monthly (every two weeks since October 2013) as well as bibliographic data.

Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information

Under the cooperation with the European Patent Office (EPO) in the frame of the Bilateral Cooperation Plan (BCP) between EPO and SIPO, for the term between 2013 and 2015, SIPO participated in several regional activities related to patent information. Those activities are already explained under previous bullets: Patent Translate service, New Espacenet, Federative European Patent Register.

Assistance to developing countries

Study visits organized in SIPO

Other activities

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VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS

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1.Classification is allotting one or more classification symbols (e.g., IPC symbols) to a patent application, either before or during search and examination, which symbols are then published with the patent application.

2. Preclassification is allotting an initial broad classification symbol (e.g., IPC class or subclass, or administrative unit) to a patent application, using human or automated means for internal administrative purposes (e.g., routing an application to the appropriate examiner).  Usually preclassification is applied by the administration of an office.

3. Reclassification is the reconsideration and usually the replacement of one or more previously allotted classification symbols to a patent document, following a revision and the entry into force of a new version of the Classification system (e.g., the IPC).  The new symbols are available on patent databases.