Annual Technical Report on Industrial Design Information Activities in 2017 submitted by Slovakia

Please fill in your items before submitting your report

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. GENERAL OVERVIEW OF RECENT DEVELOPMENTS IN INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION ACTIVITIES CARRIED OUT BY THE OFFICE

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

In 2017 within the project, the IPO SR Electronic Services (IPO ES) the new integrated information system was launched. The basic goal of the national project IPO ES or the Office priority for 2017 was identifying with project results and introducing project functionalities into all areas of the Office´s activities. The result of the project is the digitisation of procedures linked to other changes in legislation (in terms of ensuring a legislative procedure in relation to the draft law amending and supplementing the Act No. 435/2001 Coll. on patents, supplementary protection certificates and amending and supplementing certain acts (Patent Act), as amended and amending certain laws), changes in the functioning of electronic filing within the Central Public Administration Portal and consequential changes in the functioning of the IPO ES. Given the above-mentioned IPO ES project, it was necessary to provide service and technical support for the project.

At the same time the operation of e-filing and e-services in the Office environment and availability of TMview and Designview on the new platform were provided. In terms of cooperation with foreign institutions, tools for data conversion according to the WIPO standards were implemented for the purposes of the "Data Acquisition Based on Quality at Source" project.

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

Since 2011 the Office has realised the Projects of the Cooperation Fund of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) aimed at more effectively providing services to national offices experts and clients and harmonization of the practice of national offices in proceedings on applications of trade marks and designs.

In 2017 the tools realised through the mentioned projects continued to be used actively and were available not only to national Office experts but also to public. These are tools in applications DesignView (Registered designs search tool) and Quality (Centralising information on IP Office quality standards).  

More information is on the web site https://www.tmdn.org/

In 2014 the Project Common Central Database, implemented in EUIPO and used by experts of the Office´s Call Centre to build so-called Knowledge Database, was launched. It means that questions about EUTM or RCD or related questions are transferred by the Office´s experts to EUIPO experts to harmonise answers about EUTM or RCD.

The IPO SR cooperated in 2017 and still cooperates with the EUIPO within the project CP 7 to update the joint harmonised database for product indication – DesignClass.  

The Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic, in cooperation with an external contractor, terminated the IPO Electronic Services project in the 1st quarter of 2017 and deployed the solution in full operation. The result of the project is making electronic forms available for electronic filing, modernisation of backend systems of the Office and access to modernised Webregisters on the Office's website in March 2017.

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

Plans about design information relate to implementation of a new system for making data from the Office registers available on the internet (Webregisters II) interconnected with European and international systems (eSearch, Designview, Hague Express,etc.).

Projects and activities in before-mentioned item were realised in cooperation with the EUIPO.

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

In 2017, 145 design applications were received in the proceedings on designs; it is 13.7 % less than in the previous year.

The largest number of foreign applications is from Sweden (15) and from Czech Republic (8). Slovak applicants filed 118 applications (43.9 % increase). The share of domestic applications is 81.4 % of total number of filed applications.

In 2017, 154 designs were entered into the register; it is 49.5 % more than in 2016.

By December 2017, there were 874 valid national designs in the territory of the Slovak Republic.

For comparison, we provide statistic data on designs applied for and registered between 2013 and 2017:

Industrial design statistics_2017.docx

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

Annual Technical Reports on Designs:

http://www.upv.sk/?vyrocne-technicke-spravy

http://www.wipo.int/cws/en/atrs/

Annual Reports of the IPO SR:

http://www.upv.sk/?annual-reports

Design-related news

http://www.upv.sk/

Useful links

http://www.upv.sk/?linky

http://www.upv.sk/?dalsie-uzitocne-linky

Intellectual Property Magazine

http://www.upv.sk/?dusevne-vlastnictvo

IPO SR and IPO CZ Publications

http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie

IPO SR E-Zine

http://www.upv.sk/?e-zine-upv-sr

II. SERVICES AND ACTIVITIES RELATED TO INDUSTRIAL DESIGN 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

Basic information for applicants related to IP subject matters applications are available on the website of the Office www.upv.sk. These are mainly application forms of particular type of industrial property right, legislation, instructions of the IPO SR and information for applicant, administrative fees, contact to expert assistance, etc. Below are the individual areas of IP subject matters and relevant information sources with links to website of the Office, where they are available:

Designs http://www.upv.sk/?dizajny

What Is a Design?

http://www.upv.sk/?what-is-a-design

Information for Applicants

http://www.upv.sk/?designs-information-for-applicant

Legislation - Designs

http://www.upv.sk/?legislation-designs

Administrative Fees - Designs

http://www.upv.sk/?administrative-fees-designs

Filing Abroad

http://www.upv.sk/?dizjany-prihlasovanie-do-zahranicia

Design Classifications 

http://www.upv.sk/?dizajny-systemy-triedenia

Downloads

http://www.upv.sk/?downloads

http://www.upv.sk/?dizajny-dokumenty-na-prevzatie

Data Extracted from Register

http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/searchForm.do?lang=en&register=vz

Contacts

http://www.upv.sk/?contacts

Since February 1, 2014 the Central Public Administration Portal offers a form serving the general agenda, by means of which electronic filings can be made to every public institution in the Slovak Republic, thus also the IPO SR. From the 1st quarter of 2017, the Office also made specific application forms available to users during the deployment of the IPO Electronic Services Project. These services are most commonly used for trade mark proceedings. In relation to designs, these services have been used at 14%.

Availability of the application dossier in electronic form

The Office conducts the application file only in paper form.

Classification and reclassification activities; classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification

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

The WIPO Standard ST.80 is used for 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.

Other activities

Information Centre

http://www.upv.sk/?information-centre

The Information Centre provided the clients of the Office with general information on IP protection for individual subject matters, on filing applications and related administration fees. Within the consultations also information on IP protection in the Slovak Republic and also abroad was provided (Community design, international application filed under the Hague System for International Registration of Industrial Designs).

The information was provided personally, by phone (+421 48 4300 131), by post and e-mail address infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk.

In 2017 the Information Centre dealt with 6 460 requests for information; 4 759 thereof were provided by phone, 1509 by e-mail, 186 personally and 6 by post.

Pre-diagnostics of industrial property rights

http://www.upv.sk/?prediagnostika-priemyselnych-prav

To increase the IP awareness, to support innovations, creativity and competitiveness of small and middle-sized enterprises is a primary goal of the IP pre-diagnostics, which have been provided by the IPO SR experts since 2008.

During 2017 32 pre-diagnostics focused on innovative companies were performed; e. g. SCP Ružomberok (Mondi), HERN Ltd. (former ZTS Strojárne Námestovo), Žilinská teplárenská Inc. Besides that, employees also visited two research facilities – VULM Ltd. and NPPC, Research Institute of Animal Production. For the first time this consultation form was provided also to universities – Jessenius Faculty of Medicine in Martin, Comenius University, Faculty of Security Engineering, University of Žilina and Department of Furniture and Interior Design, Technical University in Zvolen.

Promotion of craft products protected by geographical indications, e. g. on the grounds of the Budatín castle (propagation of tinkery), in Pozdišovce and Sekule (ceramics), in Detva (embroidery with a curved needle), in Hrušov and Hažlín (food products), also continued.

III. SOURCES OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION PROVIDED BY THE OFFICE

Main types of publications in the field of industrial design information, outline of the content (industrial design applications, design patents, registrations, etc.) and medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URLs)

Publication of designs

The Office publishes announcements relating to registered design publications in the Official Gazette.

The following numbers of registered designs were published in the Official Gazette 2017:

151 registered designs

74 registered designs with the extended term of validity

Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR“

http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky

Design information forms part of the Official Gazette - “Vestník ÚPV SR”, covering all industrial property rights in one publication.

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

A free official edition of the IPO SR Gazette is available through the Office website as of January 2016 http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky. It is issued monthly. Older official editions of the Gazette published in the years 1993 – 2007 are published in printed form. In the years 2008 – 2015 the Gazette was published on CD-ROM in PDF format.

The Gazette contains design announcements arranged in following main chapters:

- registered designs (list of registered designs and their bibliographic data arranged according to the classes of the Locarno Classification)

- registered designs with extended term of validity (list of registered designs with extended term of validity and their bibliographic data arranged according to the classes of the Locarno Classification)

- registered designs with postponed publishing (list of registered designs with postponed publishing and their bibliographic data arranged according to the classes of the Locarno Classification)

- published registered designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing (list of published registered designs after expiration of adjournment term of publishing and their bibliographic data arranged according to the classes of the Locarno Classification)

- assignments and transfers of rights and other changes of owners

- cancellation of design registrations

- partial cancellation of design registrations

- registered designs lapsed by abandonment

- registered designs partially lapsed by abandonment

- registered designs lapsed by expiry of the validity

- extension of the validity of registered designs

- forfeitures of protection and transfers of an owner (on the basis of the court decision)

- changes of the rights of disposal to registered designs (lien)

- changes of the rights of disposal to registered designs (termination of lien)

- registration of licensing contracts

- termination of licensing contracts

- corrections of names, addresses, dates and mistakes

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

External databases

Internet databases in particular:

-Registered industrial designs database of the IPO CZ, coverage: CZ

-WIPO International Design Bulletin

-Hague Express Database (WIPO International Design Database), coverage: WIPO

-EUIPO Community Designs Database accessible via e-search at the EUIPO portal, coverage: RCD applications

-National database USPTO coverage US

-National database IPOUK coverage GB

-Research system Designview, coverage: EUIPO, WIPO and national databases of certain EU countries and also outside EU (coverage changes by the access of other countries)

See also foreign collections of gazettes, optical discs and databases as parts of the examination file mentioned in the Chapter 4.

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

ON-LINE DATABASES
http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers
IPO SR makes accessible various databases on its web site.

Freely accessible national databases are:
- "Data extracted from Registers" https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/ also called "Webregisters" give public access to data extracted from design register, which are 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.
- “Classification Systems” http://www.upv.sk/?systemy-triedenia contains design classifications used in Slovakia, 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 "Vestník ÚPV SR" may be viewed on the address http://www.upv.sk/?official-gazette - each issue is available as PDF file containing the whole issue. At the same time it is divided into PDF files containing only selected parts of the gazette, e.g.: patents, designs, trademarks or official announcements. In the archive on this webpage are available the previous volumes also in PDF format. The older volumes are gradually being added.

In the part ”International and EU databases” there are links to the most frequently used on-line databases http://www.upv.sk/?zahranicne-online-databazy#dizajny.

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
- IPO SR 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
- IPO SR E-zine http://www.upv.sk/?e-zine-upv-sr
- online order forms http://www.upv.sk/?online-orders
- price list http://www.upv.sk/swift_data/source/pdf/Cennik.pdf
- data extracted from register https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/
- IPO SR reading room http://www.upv.sk/?other-services
- searches http://www.upv.sk/?searches
- search system Designview https://www.tmdn.org/tmdsview-web/welcome.html?lang=sk
- Information centre http://www.upv.sk/?information-centre
- Contacts http://www.upv.sk/?contacts

The Office library provides following services to the public:
- providing general information and professional consulting assistance for the public
- lending service (Official Gazettes, special monographs and reference literature) in the reading room
- sale of special monographs and periodical publications (“Intellectual Property” in paper, Official Gazette “Vestník ÚPV SR” on CD-ROM) upon request or on the place
- reprographic services upon request or on the place
- online 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

Industrial design and related 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 (11th edition)
- design classifications and related information
- annual technical reports on design information (2002-2017)

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

Information on the legal status is in the internal register of trademarks. The Office provides information on the request in the form of an extract from the Register. In addition, data of this type are also published in the IPO SR database on the internet https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/ but have only informative character and do not substitute the extract from the Register; similar to the system Designview where the data are mentioned by the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market based on the information from the IPO SR within the common project.

Other sources

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

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

In the 1st quarter of 2017, the Office terminated the IPO Electronic Services project and deployed the solution in full operation. The result of the project is the Unified Information System of the IPO SR, which integrates the following systems operated by the Office: Inventio, Fabasoft, Webregisters and Electronic Forms Module.

The Inventio system is used to manage the data related to the process of proceeding on individual industrial property subject matters, i.e. central management of registers of individual industrial rights subject matters in electronic form. It is a specific system developed by the Office with an external contractor exclusively for the needs of the Office. The system includes export and import mechanisms for exchanging and updating certain data, in particular with international institutions such as the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the European Patent Office (EPO). Exports and imports are based on international WIPO standards.

Fabasoft is a certified system (certificate of Ministry of Interior of the Slovak Republic on compliance with the standards for electronic information systems for the administration of the registry defined in the Act No. 525/2011 Coll.) for electronic processing and keeping of files, records, documents and work procedures. Document Management System (DMS) has been moved from Inventio to Fabasoft. At the same time, Fabasoft is a central system that is integrated into some common modules of the Central Public Administration Portal (module of electronic mailboxes, authentication module, payment module, central electronic filing module, electronic delivery module and official communication module), the declared reference registers within the Slovak Republic (register of legal entities, register of natural persons and register of addresses) and also with other systems of the Office such as electronic forms module and Webregisters. The Office plans to continue to consider Inventio as a reference data source within the Office.

Hardware used to supporting business processes of the Office

LAN is a net built on the technology Cisco, Fast ETHERNET 1000/100/10 Mbit/s,

2012 R2 Server; MS SQL Server 2012; client HP t5740, Zotac Zbox BI323.

Linux Red Hat Enterprise 7.0, CENTOS 7

Citrix XenApp 7.18

SAN HP MSA P2000, G3, EMC VNX 5100

HP MSL LT04 4048, MSL LZ05 2024

HP open view Storage Data Protector version A.09.05

Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources

The online design database kept by the Industrial Property Office serves for national design searches and purposes of proceedings on design applications. Selected register data is available to the public on the Internet at: http://www.upv.sk/?databases-and-registers.

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

The Office regularly builds, keeps and completes the examination file containing national registered designs via the internal system Inventio. Selected data is available to the public in webregisters and are being updated daily.

It is possible to carry out searches according to bibliographic data in all databases used for designs.

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file: Design gazettes also form part of the available search files of the Office. In 2017, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR continued receiving design gazettes from the following states: Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan.

The IPO SR received registered designs from JPO stored on CD-ROM in the past year.

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

Official automated system for managing the industrial property subjects “INVENTIO II” contains designs register (data since 1991).

Administrative databases based on Lotus Domino and Fabasoft eGov Suite.

In January 2017, the Fabasoft specialised registry system was put into operation.

Other matters

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

Office's library (if deals with industrial design information): equipment, collection management, network of libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign libraries

In 2017, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 144 users. In total, there were 290 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 509 copies of patent documents and other industrial property documents for manual and computer search purposes as well as copies from technical periodicals and other associated and non-patent literature were made. In 2017, 6 design searches and 8 searches on bibliographic data were performed.

The Office’s reading room serves as a WIPO deposit library as well. The deposit library fund includes 289 volumes of publications issued by WIPO, which are available for study in reading room.

The Office’s reading room including the search workstation open daily from 8:00 to 15:00.

In 2017, within the frame of mutual exchange of industrial-property information, the IPO SR continued receiving design information in the form of official gazettes. Non-patent literature was acquired mostly by purchase or as a gift and processed, stored according to librarian rules and made available via in-house database system “Knižnica” to the staff.

Patent Information Centres and Contact and Information Points

Since 2003 the Office has cooperated with Contact and Information Points, while some of them are also the Patent Information Centres (PATLIB). They are located in state, regional and district libraries as well as in the Slovak National Library (SNK) in Martin and Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (CVTI) in Bratislava and within the University of Žilina as the Centre for Technology Transfer. Nowadays 11 Contact and Information Points are located in Slovakia and 5 of them are Patent Information Centres. A list of centres and points is available on the Office’s website http://www.upv.sk/?partners.

The main goal of patent information centres is to provide complex information services in the field of patent, trademark and industrial design information, search services, consultation and methodical assistance concerning the searching of information, making copies of required patent documents, printing records from electronic form etc. Every patent information centre serve as a contact and information point.

The main goal of contact and information points of the Office is to inform the public about where can apply for protection of the results of creative activity, and particularly to inform the general public about the existence of the national institution, which protects immaterial goods, industrial property.

The Office supported the activity of centres and contact and information points by regular sending Slovak patent specifications in paper form and the Official Gazette in electronic form, as well as all information materials and resources made available to the public, publications published by the Office, information pamphlets, documents and forms relating to applying for protection of industrial property rights, access to offices databases via Internet etc.

Information and Advisory Points for Innovations (InnoInfo)

The role of fourteen INNOINFOs located in the Slovak regions is to raise awareness on IP protection among SMEs. INNOINFO are placed in business incubators (Incubator Malacky and BIC Bratislava, spol. s r. o.), regional information and advisory centres – RPIC Komárno, Poprad, Prešov, Regional Development Agency Kysuce in Čadca and regional chambers of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at technical universities– Technical University of Košice, Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava and University Science Park, University in Žilina. Currently five regional Chambers of Commerce and Industry – Bratislava, Trenčín, Banská Bystrica, Košice and Prešov are partners of the Office as the ”innoinfo”.

In 2017 the IPO SR Open Day was held at the Regional Chamber SCCI Banská Bystrica. The seminar with the possibility to provide short individual consultations took place at the BIC Bratislava, s.r.o., SCCI Bratislava, RPIC Poprad and at the University in Košice. The lecture on the IP Protection System was presented at the Regional Chamber of SCCI Trenčín.

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

The Office publishes classifications, miscellanies, expert monographs, acts and related commentaries, promotional and information brochures, leaflets or translations of the WIPO and the EPO original publications providing valuable information on industrial property field to public.

Publication activities of the Office during 2017 include:

  • Annual Report of the Industrial Property Office of SR 2016;
  • The magazine Duševné Vlastníctvo - currently is the only Slovak periodical focused on the issue of industrial rights and copyright. In 2017, the Office issued three issues of the magazine in electronic form, issue 2/2016 and Duševné vlastníctvo – selection 2017 was published in printed form.

On the occasion of the 20th anniversary of the first issue of Duševné Vlastníctvo Magazine, the festive printed edition of the Magazine: Duševné Vlastníctvo 1997 – 2017 was issued.

For more information please see the list of publications issued by the Office http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie

WEBSITE OF THE OFFICE – www.upv.sk

The website of the Office www.upv.sk is a complex source of information for the public. In addition, it has been becoming the effective means of communication. It allows the public to quickly access information and databases related to IP. Both Slovak and English versions provide information about upcoming conferences, seminars and other events.

From March 1, 2017 new IPO SR webregisters are made available to public. Databases contain selected data from IP subject matters registers kept by the Office and are updated daily. Details of the records provide bibliographic data, data on the state of applications and legal status, full texts of published patent documents in PDF format, trade mark and designs representations and sequence items.

PORTALS www.patentovat.sk a FACEBOOK

The Office also uses the portal www.patentovat.sk, linked to the social network Facebook to raise public awareness of the IP importance and protection. The Facebook page named The Industrial Property Office of SR – patentovat.sk is updated daily. The number of visitors, fans of the Facebook page increased by 40, at the end of 2017 this number reached nearly 410.

PORTAL http://www.dusevnevlastnictvo.gov.sk/

The IPO SR cooperates with the Ministry of Culture of SR in keeping the portal http://www.dusevnevlastnictvo.gov.sk. This information portal is a digital platform to give a basic overview, orientation and information resources across all IP subject matters. It contains information on copyright and rights related to copyright, IP rights, the law against unfair competition, it also includes information on the legal regulation of trade names, trade secrets and know-how.

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

This year the Office participated for the second time in the competition National Prize for Design 2017 – Product Design organised by the Slovak Design Centre in cooperation with the Ministry of Culture of SR. The 14th year of the National Prize for Design (NPD) was aimed at product design in 2017.

14 interviews with representatives of the public sector, academia and IP professionals were held in the premises of the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava. Another 2 interviews with representatives of academia and private sector were held on February 16, 2017 at the Pavol Jozef Šafárik University in Košice. Interviews were conducted by the international strategy consultant, Alfred Radauer from Technopolis, Tamara Nanayakkara from the Department for Transition and Developed Countries (TDC), the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the national consultant, Darina Kyliánová, in coordination with the representatives of the Industrial Property Office of SR (IPO SR).

Technical University in Zvolen, The Faculty of Wood Sciences and Technology, Department of Furniture and Interior Design, organised the International Conference Creativity in Design III.

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

Recently the IPO SR recorded increased interest in the lectures on the IP protection by both secondary schools and universities, as well as by the business community and professionals. In total 32 lectures were held for pupils and students of primary and secondary schools, academics and entrepreneurs.

The IPO SR in cooperation with the Slovak Chamber of Patent Attorneys organised professional examination for performing patent attorney activities. The certificate of the successful completion of professional examination in 2017 acquired one applicant.

Seminars and workshops

The Conference for representatives of academia, PhD students, students and all those who were interested in IP issues with presence of Slovak and foreign lecturers under the auspices of the WIPO IPO SR and SCSTI took place in the premises of SCSTI in Bratislava.

The Slovak Chamber of Patent Attorneys in cooperation with the IPO SR organised the Seminar IP Protection XIII in the Hotel Sorea Trigan, Štrbské Pleso. Ing. Peter Hojčuš and JUDr. Ing. Vladimír Neuschl were the professional guarantors of the Seminar.

In the premises of the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (SCSTI) the workshop on electronic filing of international applications under PCT via ePCT System was organised at the initiative of the Slovak Chamber of Patent Attorneys, by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in cooperation with the IPO SR and SCSTI, took place.

Education Programme Intellectual Property

IPO SR provides the education programme Intellectual Property accredited by the decision of the Ministry of Education of the SR of April 30, 2014 and the accreditation certificate No. 1308/2014/44/1.

In 2017 the Programme Intellectual Property continued by the Module C – Information in the Field of IP. The total attendance was 25 participants; 24 of them completed the Module C successfully by obtaining the certificate. Since September the Programme continues by the Module D – Industrial Property Law. In the school year 2017/2018 there are 27 participants of the Programme.

PROMOTIONAL EVENTS

The IPO SR tries to get closer to public via several popularisation activities. The most important events are those organised on the occasion of the World IP Day, Researchers´ Night, various exhibitions in the IPO SR premises or educational programme Intellectual Property.

The employees of the IPO SR with invited guests commemorated the World IP Day with the Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia XVII – Innovations in Everyday Life – on April 26, 2017. This day was also the Open Day of the Office when the areas not usually accessible to public were opened.

The IPO SR representatives provided information and consultations on IP protection at the international fairs Furniture and Living in Nitra, CONECO 2017 in Bratislava, the International Engineering Fair in Nitra and the International Agricultural and Food Exhibition Agrokomplex in Nitra. For the 7th time the IPO SR participated in the European Science Festival – Researchers´ Night 2017 – in Žilina and Košice.

From October 2016 to July 2017 in the IPO SR premises the Exhibition Ján Bobek – Selected Works – was accessible. The exhibition presented decorations made of uncultivated wood and artistic works made by combined techniques.

Other activities

VI.INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ACTIVITIES IN THE FIELD OF INDUSTRIAL DESIGN INFORMATION

International exchange of industrial design information in machine-readable form (e.g., Official Gazettes)

In 2017 followed the mutual exchange of design information in the form of official gazettes between the IPO SR and other offices also international organization the WIPO.

Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to industrial design information

In 2017 the IPO SR made Slovak designs available periodically in the search system Designview https://www.tmdn.org/tmdsview-web/welcome.html?lang=sk. This searching tool contains data of registers of involved national offices, WIPO and OHIM. Designview provides centralised access to information on registered designs, which is at disposal of the offices involved in the Project.

Assistance to developing countries

Other activities

VII. OTHER RELATED MATTERS