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In the year 2003, the total number of trademark applications (including national applications and international applications - Madrid System) was 4,073, which compared with the previous year 2002, when the total number of trademark applications was 3,441, is an increase of 18.4%. In 2002, the number of trademark registrations was 1,225 and in 2003, the total number of trademark registrations was 535 which is a decrease of 56.3% in the number of trademark registrations.
According to the International Classification of Products and Services, (Nice agreement) the situation with the received trademark applications by classes has changed significantly in comparison to last year. Thus, the majority of the applications in 2003 were for pharmaceutical products, class 5 of the Nice classification (367applications with 17.6% participation). In second place were applications with reference to the class 35 (139 applications and participation of 6.6%) and in third place was class 03 (131 applications and participation of 6.3%). These first three were followed by the applications for the products in class 30 (105 applications and participation of 5.0%) and the applications related to class 16 (101applications and participation of 4.8%). This data indicate the increasing interest for trademark protection in the area of pharmaceutical industry and the other medical product from class 5, which may be attributed to the existence of a pharmaceutical in the Republic of Macedonia. In addition, there is high interest for the trademark protection of the products in the area of advertising, work management and office management related to class 35.
In 2003, 45 countries filed trademarks applications under the national procedure. The number of trademark applications filed by the national applicants constituted 48.1%. of the total number of applications filed. The most active applicants were from US(13.3%.), HR (8.5%.), DE (3.4%.)
The internationally registered Macedonian trademarks within the framework of the Madrid agreement in 2003 were reduced in comparison to the previous year. In 2002 the State Office of Industrial Property has internationally registered 10 trademarks. In 2003 the number of internationally registered trademarks was 9 and territorial expansions 5.
In 2003, within the framework of the Madrid System ( Madrid Agreement and Madrid Protocol) 2490 international trademark applications were received and 590 territorial expansions where the applicants were members of the Madrid Union and requested protection in Republic of Macedonia. In that context the most applications were from Germany 26.8%, Switzerland 9.2%, France 8.8% and Italy 8.3%. According to the participation of the countries in the total number of the applications we recognized that the same position has been kept as it was in 2002 (Germany 32.2%, Switzerland 12.2% and France and Italy 11.9%).
In 2003, 484 trademarks were renewed and 78 registration of trademarks were cancelled or expired.
The Industrial Property Protection Office of the Republic of Macedonia issues the official gazette “Glasnik”. The Gazette is issued every three months. This official gazette contains data concerning:
-Trademark registration
-Trademark renewals
-Trademark assignments
-Change of data concerning trademark owners
- Change in the list of goods and services
-Registration of license agreements in respect of trademarks
-Cancellations of national trademarks
-Official decisions,
and information regarding other activities of the Office, in the country and abroad. There are very often commentaries of ongoing activities in protection of industrial property rights. The Office issues an Annual Report of its activities from the previous year. This Report contains basic data for trademarks.
The Industrial Property Protection Office of the Republic of Macedonia uses International Classification of Goods and Services for the Purposes of the Registration of Marks (Nice Classification).
Bibliographic data of trademark applications and registered trademarks are stored in a database on magnetic disc and they are machine searchable.
WIPO Standard ST.60 is used for bibliographic data coding.
Trademark information is available in both paper and electronic format but pending implementation of an in-house system the electronic data was still not available for computerized searches.
In the field of computerization several activities were taken during the 2003:
- In-house systems:
For the period of this year there was no global in-house system in place yet, but towards the end of the year the Office, in cooperation with WIPO, started an implementation of the IPAS Software which is planned to gradually encompass all three major IP domains beginning with Trademarks and Patents and finally Industrial Designs too.
- External databases:
Esp@cenet
- Administrative management systems:
Electronic register of published industrial designs
- Hardware:
- 100 Mbit/per seat switched Ethernet network
- Xylan switches (48 ports)
- Motorola Vanguard router
- 26 Celeron 430 MHz (or higher), 128 MB RAM, 4,3 (or higher) GB HDD PCs and 17” monitors
- 1 application sever with dual PII 400 MHz, 320 MB RAM, and 9GB SCSCI HDD
- Pairgain modem 64 Kbit-2Mbit
- Windows 2000 Professional as a platform deployed on more than 80% of the computers with a few Windows NT and Windows XP Professional.
- Windows 98 where hardware requirements for Windows NT are not met
- Windows NT server
- Towards the end of the year an Oracle Server was obtained to serve as the basis for the implementation of the IPAS Software.
The Office disposes of information relating to trademarks entered into the Office register.
The Library has a collection of relevant publications and periodicals, which are available to all interested persons at the Office library.
The Office sends and receives trademark gazettes in paper form. The official gazettes, as well as the Annual Report are distributed to the following countries: AM, AL, AR, AT, AU, AZ, BR, BA, BG, BE, BY, BX CA, CN, CY, CZ, CH, DE, EE, EG, ES, FI, FR, GB, GR, HR, HU, IT, IL, JP, LI, LV, LT, LU, MA, MD, NL, NO, PL, PT, RO, RU, SI, SE, SK, TR, UA, US, and YU. The Office receives gazettes and annual reports from the following countries: AT, BG, ER, BY, MD, PL, HU, UA, FI, CZ, RU, SK, JP, YU, HR and SI.
In the year 2003, the educational and training activities of the employees of the Trademark Department were as follows:
WIPO
Seminar: International Classification of goods and services for the purposes of registration of marks under the Nice Agreement (Geneva)
Seminar: Madrid System for International Registrations of Marks (Geneva)
Seminar: Madrid Agreement for International Registration of Marks and Protocol Relating to the Madrid Agreement (Geneva)
In the end of the 2003 started the CARDS - Regional Industrial and Intellectual Property Rights- Work program and realized several seminars in the region.