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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.
During 2003, the Federal Institute of Industrial Property (FIPS) carried out a number of projects to improve technological provision for the processes of examining applications for industrial designs, subject to the amended patent legislation in force. As a result of these projects, changes have been made to the technological provision for examination processes, including to the forms of outgoing correspondence, aimed at implementing the amended and new procedures. New kinds of patents for industrial designs have been created, allowing the scope of legal protection for industrial designs, provided by these patents, to be reflected directly in the patents. Of particular note is the creation of the forms “Attachment No.” for patents for industrial designs, allowing information on the changes made to patents to be included in the forms.
The table shows the rate at which applications were filed and patents granted for industrial designs in 2002 and 2003.
In 2003, there was a sharp increase in the receipt of applications filed for the grant of patents for industrial designs (1.4 times). This applies equally to applications by Russian applicants and those from foreign applicants.
Technological processes for the production and transfer of information on machine-readable carriers have been prepared with a view to being introduced for industrial design publications and the compilation of the Rospatent gazette. A subsystem has been devised and introduced for the paperless automated preparation of patents, based on examiners’ decisions produced in the Russian Federation Industrial Designs Automated System.
During 2003, 2,153 announcements were published for patents registered for industrial designs in the Russian Federation.
In 2003, the following official publications were issued:
Industrial Designs gazette – 12 issues;
Annual index to the Industrial Designs gazette;
Russian Industrial Designs optical disks began to be issued in 2001.
Data are stored on paper, diskettes and optical disks, as well as in the form of databases or arrays.
In 2003, work was completed on the improvement of the automated system for searching and preparing examiners’ decisions on applications for industrial designs. All the examiners’ decisions are prepared in electronic form.
In 2003, the Russian Federation Industrial Designs Automated System was transferred to a more powerful Microsoft SQL-server program system, incorporating modern search functions. In addition to the automated preparation of examiners’ decisions in the Russian Federation Industrial Designs Automated System, a closed cycle of electronic document circulation is provided, beginning with the filing of an application for an industrial design and ending with the automatic preparation of data for the production of instruments providing protection and the publication of patent information. Measures have been completed for conversion to using the eighth edition of the International Classification of Industrial Designs (ICID). Use of the system allows the increasing volumes of application documents to be processed, without increasing the number of technical personnel.
Comprehensive technology is used in the Office for the procedures for examining industrial designs with a view to the preparation of electronic data for publication in official Rospatent editions and the formulation of patents for industrial designs, and databases are used containing information on industrial designs published on CD-ROM optical disks and the FIPS server, as well as databases available on the Internet and including information published previously on the CD-ROMs in question.
Information on industrial designs is classified in accordance with the seventh edition of the ICID (Locarno Classification). The Russian-language version of the ICID was published in 1999.
On the basis of the ICID, an International Classification of Industrial Designs subsystem of the Russian Federation Industrial Designs Automated System is in operation.
Two-figure INID digital codes are used to index bibliographical data on standard forms and in the automated system.
The industrial designs collection consists of individual editions or general gazettes, grouped according to the ICID indexes (Japan) or gazette issues (Bulgaria, Hungary, Switzerland and so on). In addition, the Library has a collection of industrial designs from 11 different countries, consisting of materials containing publications from national gazettes and a translation of the name of an industrial design into Russian. This collection is grouped according to the ICID indexes with collections of varying depth for each country.
The file is updated by means of the inclusion of current documentation on industrial designs of the Russian Federation and documentation received from foreign partners of Rospatent as part of the international exchange system.
In 2003, collections in the form of thematic selections, based on publications from the gazettes of CIS countries, were prepared and incorporated in the file.
File storage conditions correspond to the types of information carriers used:
patent documentation on paper is stored in cases on shelves;
on microcarriers – in metal boxes, files-film libraries (microfilms) and in metal cabinets (microfiches);
on CD-ROMs – in catalog racks.
In 2003, information on industrial designs was received by the FIPS All-Union Patent Technology Library (VPTB) Division, both in the form of special gazettes and also sections in industrial property gazettes from 42 countries and one international organization.
The online in-house system used since 1991 is the Russian Federation Industrial Designs Automated System, which is used for information searches according to national industrial designs during the examination of applications for such designs. The system in question contains an information array of national patents and applications, as well as graphics files with illustrations of industrial designs and an International Classification of Industrial Designs automated subsystem.
FIPS uses an automated databank (ADB), the basic functions of which are to store information on applications received and to automate the processes for regulating business correspondence. The ADB also enables statistical information to be obtained, together with details of the features of the application examination process and the payment of fees, and the annual reports of Rospatent to be compiled.
- Compaq Proliant 5000 Server
(OM – 256 MB, processors – 2, external memory – 38 GB)
Compaq 586, Р ММХ, PII, Fujitsu-Siemens workstations - 50 units
Switching equipment:
Equipment for lines ISDN MAX 200Plus c (8/4) WAN PCMCIA
TypeII/TypeI; SmartSWITCH 6000
Software:
SINIX, Novell, Windows95, Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP operating systems.
Carriers used:
DLTtape III, DLTtape IV, SDLT magnetic tape.
The collection of industrial designs is divided into national and foreign sections:
- official gazettes;
- (artistic) design periodicals;
- advertising prospectuses and catalogs;
- thematic collections containing publications from national gazettes from a number of foreign countries;
- method-based and information-related literature.
The collection of national and foreign journals concerned with design and new types of production contains a total of more than 31,000 copies.
A special collection of advertising prospectuses and catalogs linked to exhibitions, as well as advertising for new goods and other items, is being set up. This collection contains more than 42,000 copies of publications.
For work with information relating to industrial designs, a special room has been equipped in the FIPS VPTB Division:
In 2003:
- the gazettes issued constituted 6,800 storage units;
- a total of 13,000 subject-based collections were issued;
- approximately 11,000 copies of design gazettes were issued.
For information users in the field of industrial designs, services are provided for the performance of various types of information searches.
Information on industrial designs registered in the Russian Federation is issued on CD-ROM, in the form of sets containing complete information in the Industrial Designs gazette (including illustrations). Disks are distributed together with the software MIMOSA, which searches bibliographical data, ICID indexes, a list of essential features, and also combinations thereof.
Internet access is granted to industrial design databases and also to the International Classification of Industrial Designs.
A set of current information for 2003 was issued quarterly on a cumulative basis – the first disk contained information for the first quarter of 2003 and each subsequent disk contained the information from the previous disk and was updated with current information.
A retrospective set on DVD was also provided for the period 1993 to 2003.
In addition to the Rospatent FIPS, a patent information service is provided by the Rospatent Information Publishing Center (IPC). In 2003, a publication entitled Industrial Designs of Foreign Countries was issued (distribution by subject – according to the headings of the ICID). This publication contained information on industrial designs registered in Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Colombia, Czech Republic, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Norway, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland and the United States of America, for 2002.
In 2003, as part of the international exchange system the official Rospatent Industrial Designs gazette was sent:
on paper, 44 annual sets to 41 countries;
on microfiches, 16 sets to 15 countries.
Information on industrial designs was received from 42 countries and one international organization:
- individually published gazettes – 153 copies on paper, 187 copies on CD-ROM;
- industrial property gazettes with sections on industrial designs – 693 copies on paper, 252 on CD-ROM.
One hundred and eighty seven copies of gazettes published individually on CD-ROM and 252 industrial property gazettes with sections on industrial designs on CD-ROM were received.
In 2003, two events were held, organized directly by Rospatent or with its active participation, in Moscow, including in the field of protection for industrial designs:
Conference and Round Table as part of the Sixth International Industrial Property Exhibition “Archimedes-2003”;
Scientific and practical conference on the “Theory and Practice of Intellectual Property Protection in the Russian Federation in the Light of Amended Legislation”.
In 2003, FIPS organized and held a seminar, based on a model program, on the subject of “the enforcement of rights in intellectual property subject matter, taking into account the amendments made to the legislation of the Russian Federation. Licensing-agreement relations”. Seventy-nine specialists participated in the seminar, including representatives from Moscow, the Moscow region and other regions of Russia, as well as the Republic of Belarus.