The term "patent" covers utility models and Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs).
Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in their Annual Technical Reports on Industrial Design Information Activities.
Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization
In 2013 strategy of the Office's activities by 2016 was adopted. It contains inter-alia activities in the patent information area:
Evaluation of the period 2013 - 2016 in the area of information services and the report on their status and perspectives is planned for the end of 2016.
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
In 2013 the IPO SR was involved in projects of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (OHIM) to support IP rights enforcement aimed at creation of electronic tool for data exchange between the European Commission, OHIM, authorities practicing the IP enforcement and other involved parties.
It co-operated with the European Patent Office (EPO) particularly on projects realised within the Co-operation Plan for 2012 - 2015. Based on the agreement between the EPO and Google the development of the service Patent Translate - free machine patent translation - continued. By the end of 2013 28 languages from 38 EPO member states were included into the machine translator. Translations from English to Slovak and vice versa are possible too. Results are not of the needed quality and co-operation of the IPO SR and EPO on this language pair has been in progress. Machine translation service is available in the EPO online patent database Espacenet and European Publication Server.
The co-operation on the common project of the Federative European Patent Register to improve the access to information on the status of continued. Slovakia belongs to states national registers of which have been made available via "deep linking" directly from the European patent register.
In co-operation with the external company the Office launched the project Electronic Services of the IPO SR aimed at inter-alia preparation of new modern web registers of the Office.
Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year.
Plans about patent 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 (EPO Register, PatentScope, Espacenet, etc.); and
- making the system Publication Server with possibility to replace paper patent documents with electronic form operational
with the planned realisation in 2014 - 2015 and implementation in 2015.
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
PATENTS AND SUPPLEMENTARY PROTECTION CERTIFICATES
There were 210 patent applications filed with the IPO SR in 2012; it is increase by 3.4 per cent in comparison with 2012. PCT applications form 4.3 per cent (9 applications) of all applications.
The number of applications filed by domestic applicants (184) increased by 9.5 per cent and applications filed by foreign applicants (26) decreased by 25.7 per cent. Czech Republic (14), Taiwan (4) and Germany (2) had the largest share in the total number of patent applications filed by foreign applicants (26).
There were 115 granted patents in 2013; the number decreased by 28.6 per cent comparing to the previous year.
From January 1, 2013 to December 31, 2013 there were 44 supplementary protection certificate applications filed. All of them were filed by foreign applicants; the most of them were from the U.S.A. - 1, and from Germany - 6; 19 supplementary protection certificates were granted.
There were 14,218 valid patents entered in the Patent Register of the IPO SR by December 31, 2013; 2,755 of them were national patents granted.
Applications in the field of Electricity (10.48 per cent), Transporting, Conveying and Storing (9.52 per cent), Horology, Regulation, Checking and Signalling Devices (9.05 per cent), Engines and Pumps (7.62 per cent) had the largest share.
EUROPEAN PATENTS
In 2013 2 European patent applications were filed with the IPO SR and 2,387 translations of European patent specifications were published.
There were 11,463 European patents with designation for SR registered by December 31, 2013.
UTILITY MODELS
There were 429 utility model applications filed with the IPO SR in 2013. This number increased by 9.4 per cent in comparison with the previous year. The number of applications filed by Slovak applicants increased by 13.8 per cent (339). The share of Slovak applicants in total number of 429 applications is 79.0 per cent.
Decrease by 19.8 per cent occurred in the number of registered utility models (287).
By December 31, 2013, there were 1,682 utility models valid in the Slovak Republic.
The most registered utility models were from the fields of Building (10.72 per cent), Transporting, Conveying and Storing (10.72 per cent), Horology, Regulation, Checking and Signalling Devices (7.46 per cent), Electricity (6.99 per cent).
For comparison, there is the statistics on filed patent applications and granted patents, on filed utility model applications and registered utility models and on translations of European patent specifications in 2005 - 2013:
Patentandutilitymodelstatistics_2013.docx
Other matters and useful links (URLs): annual report of the Office, news page, statistics, etc.
Annual Technical Reports on Patents:
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
Patent, utility models and supplementary protection certificates-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
Information and support provided by the Office to applicants regarding filing on paper and/or e-filing (instructions, seminars, etc.) - URLs
Basic information which are useful for the applicant by filing the application of particular type of industrial property right are available on Office's website http://www.upv.sk/. These are mainly application forms of particular type of industrial property right, legislation, instructions of the IPO SR, information for applicant, administrative fees, contact to expert assistance, etc. and other relevant information related to subjects of industrial property right laying within the authority of the IPO SR:
Patents http://www.upv.sk/?Patents
What Can Be Protected and How?
http://www.upv.sk/?what-and-how-can-be-protected
Information for Patent Applicants
http://www.upv.sk/?information-for-patent-applicants
Legislation
http://www.upv.sk/?patents-legislation
Instruction of the IPO SR
http://www.upv.sk/?instruction-of-the-industrial-property-office-of-the-slovak-republic-defining-uniform-layout-of-the-patent-application
Administrative Fees - Patents
http://www.upv.sk/?patents-administrative-fees
Maintenance Fees - Patents
http://www.upv.sk/?patents-maintenance-fees
Filing Abroad
http://www.upv.sk/?patenty-prihlasovanie-do-zahranicia
PCT Fees
http://www.upv.sk/?patents-pct-fees
License Offers
http://www.upv.sk/?patenty-ponuky-licencii
Patent Classification
http://ipc.indprop.gov.sk/ipcpub/#refresh=page
Data Extracted from Registers
http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/searchForm.do?lang=en®ister=p
Downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?patenty-dokumenty-na-prevzatie
Contacts
http://www.upv.sk/?contacts
Utility models http://www.upv.sk/?utility-models
Why Utility Models ?
http://www.upv.sk/?why-utility-models
Information for Utility Model Applicants
http://www.upv.sk/?information-for-utility-model-applicants
Legislation - Utility Models
http://www.upv.sk/?utility-models-legislation
Instruction of the IPO SR
http://www.upv.sk/?instruction-of-the-industrial-property-office-of-the-slovak-republic-defining-uniform-layout-of-a-utility-model-application
Administrative Fees - Utility Models
http://www.upv.sk/?administrative-fees-utility-models
Filing Abroad
http://www.upv.sk/?uzitkove-vzory-prihlasovanie-do-zahranicia
PCT Fees
http://www.upv.sk/?uzitkove-vzory-poplatky-pct
Downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?uzitkove-vzory-dokumenty-na-prevzatie
Data Extracted from Registers
http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/searchForm.do?lang=en®ister=uv
Patent Classification
http://ipc.indprop.gov.sk/ipcpub/#refresh=page
Contacts
http://www.upv.sk/?contacts
Supplementary Protection Certificates http://www.upv.sk/?supplementary-protection-certificates
What is a Supplementary Protection Certificate
http://www.upv.sk/?what-is-a-supplementary-protection-certificate
Information for Applicants
http://www.upv.sk/?supplementary-protection-certificate-information-for-applicants
Legislation - Supplementary Protection Certificate
http://www.upv.sk/?legislation-supplementary-protection-certificate
Administrative Fees - Supplementary Protection Certificates
http://www.upv.sk/?administrative-fees-supplementary-protection-certificate
Maintenance fees - Supplementary Protection Certificates
http://www.upv.sk/?supplementary-protection-certificate-maintenance-fees
Filing Abroad
http://www.upv.sk/?dodatkove-ochranne-osvedcenia-prihlasovanie-do-zahranicia
Downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?downloads
http://www.upv.sk/?dodatkove-ochranne-osvedcenia-dokumenty-na-prevzatie
Data Extracted from Registers - Webregisters
http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/searchForm.do?lang=en®ister=do
Contacts
http://www.upv.sk/?contacts
Information related to electronic filing is available on the web seat of the Office
http://www.upv.sk/?elektronicke-podavanie-vseobecne.
In the past the Office in the cooperation with the European Patent Office implemented the system EPTOS enabling to file with the Office:
National patent applications
National utility model applications
Translations of patent claims of published European patent applications into the Slovak language
Translations of European patent files into the Slovak language
This service is provided by the Office with Helpdesk http://www.upv.sk/?helpdesk to obtain detailed information and to solve occurred problems. Within the Helpdesk service the Office provides and publishes manuals with frequently asked questions available on the address http://www.upv.sk/?elektronicke-podavanie-prihlasok-faq.
In 2013 the Office widened the possibilities of filing by filing requests for granting supplementary protection certificates within the EPTOS system. Electronic applications filing increased by more than 10 % and European applications and international applications filed under the Patent Co-operation Treaty increased by more than 5 % in comparing with the previous year. European patent documents translations with designation for the Slovak Republic increased by more than 6 % in comparing with 2012. The number of subsequent documents to patent applications, utility models applications and to European patent documents translations with designation for the Slovak Republic increased by more than 36 % in comparing with the previous year.
Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
The Office conducts the application file only in the paper form.
Classification1, preclassification2 (if applicable), reclassification3 activities; classification systems used (e.g., International Patent Classification (IPC)); matters concerning indexing of patent information
Patent applications and utility model applications were classified, preclassified (i.e. preliminarily classified at the subclass level) and reclassified by Office's experts according to the edition MPT 2013.01 of the International Patent Classification. The WIPO Standards ST.8 and ST.10/C were also used for these purposes. Classification of applications was conducted before the publication of the application, while final specification of the classification symbol can be done during the search of the application. Patent applications were preclassified by allotting subclass symbols to route a patent application to the appropriate examiner or for statistical purposes. Reclassifying of applications according to the current edition of the IPC was carried out after entry of a new edition of the IPC core level into force.
The IPC 2013.01 had been used in the Office for classification the Slovak patent documents until the end of 2013.
Software tools to operate the Slovak version of the IPC in standardized electronic form in the Internet were implemented within co-operation with the WIPO. The tools simplify preparation of Slovak translations of the IPC issued annually after changes effective since 2011. Slovak editions of the IPC in the electronic form are made accessible to public and the Office employees on the site http://mpt.upv.sk/ or http://ipc.indprop.gov.sk.
Digitalisation and indexing
In 2013, the Office continued in regular monthly digitalisation of new entries of national patent documentation (patent applications, patent specifications, utility model applications, utility models), corrected documents to relevant patent documents issued by the Office, translations of patent claims of European patent applications and translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK. The Office also continued the production of Official Gazette on CD ROM.
For the digitalization of patent documents scanner Fujitsu fi-4340C and software tools Eposcan 1.03.08 (scanning and indexing of documents) were used, along with Wipost33 EPO 1.04.00 (conversion of scanned and indexed documents to BAC format according to the WIPO Standard ST.33) and ST.33 to PDF in version dated 23rd February 2007 (conversion of documents from BAC format to PDF 1.3).
The WIPO Standard ST. 9 is used for patent and utility model 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.
Abstracting, reviewing, and translation of the information contained in patent documents
An abstract is an obligatory part of a patent application and a utility model application (Article 37(4) (b) of the Act No 435/2001 Coll. and Article 32(4)(b) of the Act No 517/2007 Coll.); i.e. an applicant is obliged to file an abstract together with an application. The Office may amend an abstract ex officio (Article 7(2) of the Decree No 223/2002 Coll. and Article 5(2) of the Decree No 1/2008 Coll.), but in the case of abstracts to utility model applications their content can not be amended (Article 5(2) of the Decree No 1/2008 Coll.).
When publishing applications the Office shall translate the names of patent and utility model applications into English. When granting a patent and entering a utility model into the Register the Office shall translate also an abstract into English. Translations of these abstracts and names into English are being sent to the European Patent Office regularly to publish them in the Espacenet database, where they are available in 31 other languages.
Abstracts are being published on title pages of patent specifications and as parts of notifications in the Official Gazette in the part related to published patent applications and published utility model applications.
Other activities
Information Centre
http://www.upv.sk/?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 increased in comparing to 2012 up to 8,020 requests. Information Centre provided 6,291 pieces of information by phone; 1,345 by e-mail; 244 personally; 139 by post and 1 piece of information was sent by fax.
Pre-diagnostics of industrial property rights
http://www.upv.sk/?prediagnostika-priemyselnych-prav
To increase the awareness of industrial property, to support innovations, creativity and competitiveness of small and medium-sized enterprises are the primary goals of industrial rights pre-diagnostics performed by the IPO SR experts since 2008. During 2013 the Office employees visited 13 companies from the whole Slovakia. The most of them were from Bratislava (4), Trenčín (3), Banská Bystrica (2), and Nitra (9) Self-Governing Regions. Although filing applications is not the primary goal of the pre-diagnostics, totally 155 applications in 6 years were received since implementation of this service.
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.
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)
Patent Documents (codes of documents according to the WIPO ST.16):
Patent documents are available in the paper form in the study room of the IPO SR and also in the electronic form on the web page of the IPO SR http://data.indprop.gov.sk/Patenty/search.php?jazyk=en extent: patent specifications SK a CS (213521 - 288151), European patents with designation for SR (1 - 15009) and utility models (1 - 6628).
Moreover, all kinds of patent specifications published in the Official Gazette regularly in the PDF format are available in the Office's web databases http://registre.indprop.gov.sk/registre/?lang=sk, in the system http://sk.espacenet.com/ and also http://worldwide.espacenet.com/?locale=en_EP. Slovak patent documents from 1993 to 2008 are available on ESPACE ®-PRECES CD-ROM (CD-ROM contains patents from the Region of Eastern and Central European States). ESPACE ® ACCESS PRECES (complete bibliographic information) is used as an index to these full text CD-ROMs.
Official Gazette "Vestník ÚPV SR"
http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky
Patents and utility model information forms part of the Official Gazette - "Vestník ÚPV SR", covering all industrial property rights in one publication. In 2013 the Gazette had a circulation of 130 copies, of which 28 were distributed monthly by subscription. Other copies were sent free of charge to patent information centres and contact and information points of the IPO SR, to information and consulting sites INNOINFO, within the frame of industrial property information exchange to foreign offices and as statutory copies according to the act as well.
The following numbers of documents were published in the Official Gazette in 2013:
168 published patent applications
118 granted patents
360 published utility model applications
285 registered utility models
38 applications for granting SPC's
24 granted SPC's
2 387 translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK
11 corrected translations of European patent specifications with designation for SK
37 translations of amended European patent specifications with designation for SK
Official Gazettes: main types of announcements, frequency of publication, medium (on paper, on CDs, online - URL), etc.
IPO SR publishes official version of the Official Gazette in electronic form on CD ROM in PDF format. The electronic version of the Gazette in PDF format is available via Internet address http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky.
The Gazette contains announcements on granted patents and patent applications, including translations of European patents and patent claims of European patent applications with designation for SK, announcements on applications for supplementary protection certificates and granted supplementary protection certificates and announcements on utility model applications and registered utility models, arranged in following main chapters:
PATENTS
UTILITY MODELS
EUROPEAN PATENTS
SUPPLEMENTARY PROTECTION CERTIFICATES
Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) available to examiners, including external collections and databases
IPO SR Official Gazette http://www.upv.sk/?vestnik-uradu-priemyselneho-vlastnictva-slovenskej-republiky
External databases
See also foreign collections of patent literature and optical discs as parts of the examination file mentioned in the Chapter 4.
Information products and patent document collections (coverage, medium, etc.) 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:
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#patenty.
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
The Office library provides following services to the public:
Patent and related information on the World Wide Web:
Legal status information (kind of information, coverage, medium, etc.)
Information on the legal status is in the internal register of patents, utility models and supplementary protection certificates. 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 but have only informative character and do not substitute the extract from the Register; similar to the system Espacenet where the data are mentioned by the European Patent Office based on the information from the IPO SR Official Gazette.
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. Server - Client - DB environment in based on the WINDOWS 2003/2008 Server; working stations PC Pentium, Windows XP / 7, thin client WYSE V10, WYSE S10, HP t5740; Citrix XenApp 5.0 FP3; MS SQL Server 2005 / 2008.
Disc arrays are of the SAN HP MSA 1500 CS, SAN HP MSA P2000 G3 Type; backup is realised by the tape technology HP MSL 4048 LTO 4 Ultrium using the software HP OpenView Storage DataProtector A.07.0.
Internal databases: coverage, updates, interlinks with external sources
The IPO SR maintains the online database of patents, utility models and supplementary protection certificates necessary for searches and proceedings on patent applications, utility model applications and requests for granting and extension of the validity of supplementary protection certificates. Selected data are available to public on the internet 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 builds, keeps and completes regularly the examination file containing national patent applications, utility model applications, requests for granting supplementary protection certificates, granted patents, registered utility models, granted supplementary protection certificates and translations of European patents and patent claims of European patent applications with designation for the Slovak Republic via the internet system INVENTIO. Selected data are available to public in webregisters and are updated daily.
It is possible to carry out searches according to bibliographic data in all the databases used for granted patents, published patent applications, registered utility models, utility model applications, European patents with designation for SK and supplementary protection certificates.
The patent documentation search file used by the patent examiners and the technical public contains patent documents from 26 countries, the EPO, the WIPO and the OAPI, patent gazettes from 35 countries, including the EPO and the WIPO and the non-patent literature (21 titles of technical periodicals and 9.452 titles of special literature).
Updating of patent documentation search file is performed regularly according to current technical possibilities.
The basis of the patent fund forms the collection stored on the paper medium (cca 10 millions documents). However the majority of the patent documentation is currently received on electronic carriers. In 2013 the regular annual accession of optical discs reached 452 pieces of optical discs with full texts and bibliographic information concerning the patent documents.
IPO SR is maintaining the patent documentation collection stored in paper form, which forms, as a part of PCT minimum documentation, the basis of search files within the range:
-from 1950 to 1992: the documentation DD (from 1958), DE (from 1951), CH (from 1944), FR (from 1945), GB (from 1967), PL (from 1963), SU (from 1941), US (from 1960) and the documentation EPO (from 1978) a WIPO (from 1978)
-from 1919 to the present: national documentation SK and formal CS
-from 1993 to the present: national documentation CZ
Since 1993 the Office has been receiving patent documents stored on optical discs from following countries: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Germany, France, Georgia, Italy, Japan, Canada, China, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Switzerland, Slovenia, Spain, Czech Republic, Ukraine, Hungary, United States of America, United Kingdom and from international organisations EPO, OAPI and WIPO.
In 2013, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR continued in receiving patent and utility model gazettes from the following states and organizations: Armenia, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Benelux, Brazil, Czech Republic, Estonia, Georgia, Germany, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Moldova, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Spain, United Kingdom, Turkey, Ukraine, EPO and WIPO. The previously received gazettes from: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia , Egypt, Finland, France, Hungary, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovenia, Switzerland and US also constitute the available search files of the office.
The collection of search CD-ROMs; some of them have been made available via the local CD-ROM network by the Ultranet 2000 system:
ESPACE - ACCESS EP - A (1997-2013)
ESPACE - ACCESS EP - B (1994-2013)
ESPACE - UK (1979-2013)
ESPACE - AT - A (1990-2013)
ESPACE - AT - B (1990-2013)
ESPACE - DK - B (1990-2013)
ESPACE - DK - C (1990-2013)
ESPACE - SI (1993-2013)
ESPACE-ES (1990-2010)
ESPACE-BENELUX (BE-A, LU-A, NL-A, NL-C) (1991-2011)
ESPACE-CH (1990-2008)
Patent Applications of Canada - CA - A (1999-2013)
Granted Patents of Canada - CA - B (2000-2013)
KPA (Korean patent abstracts) (2007-2013)
Chinese Patent Bibliography Abstract (1985-2013)
DEPAROM-U (1995-2011)
DEPAROM-ACT (1995-2011)
COSMOS FR-A (1992-2010)
COSMOS FR-B (2000-2010)
ESPACE - ACCESS - EPC (EUROPE) (2005-2009)
ESPACE - FIRST (1978-2009)
ESPACE - WO (2000-2009)
ESPACE - PRECES (1993-2008)
ESPACE - ACCESS - PRECES (1993-2008)
ESPACE - ACCESS - RUSSIA (1924-2004)
ESPACE - BULLETIN (2009)
PAJ (Patent Abstracts of Japan) (1976-2013)
GlobalPat (1971-2000)
USAPat (1994-2011)
USAApp (2001-2011)
Administrative management electronic systems (register, legal status, statistics, and administrative support)
Official automated system for managing the industrial property subjects "INVENTIO"contains registers of patents, European patents with designation for SK, utility models, supplementary protection certificates and PCT registry (data since 1993 - patents, data since 2003 - European patents with designation for SK, data since 1992 - utility models, data since 2002 - supplementary protection certificates and data since 1995 - PCT applications filed with IPO SR as a receiving office).
Administrative management system is based on Lotus Domino and Fabasoft eGov Suite.
Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries
In 2013, the Office's reading room has been visited by 1 242 users and 1 218 of it were from the public. In total there were provided 6 142 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 19 554 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 2013 there were performed 56 patent searches and 40 searches on bibliographic data.
The Office's reading room serves as a WIPO deposit library as well. The deposit library fund includes 196 volumes of publications issued by WIPO, which are available for study in reading room.
The Office's reading room including the search workstation opens daily from 8:00 to 15:00.
Collecting, acquisitions, preparation
In the last year were processed 5 255 patent documents in paper form and 452 optical discs containing full texts and bibliographic information relating to patent documents as well to made them available for search purposes. The entire acquisition of patent documents amounted to
1 820 945 documents, out of which 1 815 690 entries represented documents in electrical form. Other new entries, for instance Official Gazettes of the foreign offices (22) and miscellaneous associated literature, were processed on the monthly basis.
The patent literature (patent documentation and official gazettes) were acquired within the frame of mutual exchange and the non-patent literature mostly by purchase or as a gift.
A list of the complete patent documentation was regularly updated on the Office's web site. Non-patent literature was 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 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 (SNK) in Martin and Centre of Scientific and Technical Information (CVTI) in Bratislava. A list of centres and points is available on the Office's web site 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 Office, information pamphlets, documents and forms relating to applying for protection of industrial property rights, access to office's databases via Internet etc.
Information and Advisory Points for Innovations (InnoInfo)
The mission of InnoInfo centres http://www.upv.sk/?information-and-advisory-points-for-innovation-innoinfo 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 advisory and information centres, regional chambers of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry and at the Universities of technical orientation.
In 2013 the Office co-operated particularly with Incubator Malacky and with University Technological Incubator of the Slovak University of Technology in Bratislava, and also with Košice Regional Chamber of the Slovak Chamber of Commerce and Industry. (We have to also point out the co-operation with the SCSTI of SR in Bratislava and the Slovak Scientific Library in Košice as PATLIB Centres.) The co-operation with the Slovak Library of Forestry and Wood Sciences in Zvolen, with the Technical University in Zvolen and with the Faculty of Industrial Technology in Púchov developed in a promising way.
Publications related to different business procedures and patent 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 (e. g. WIPO information brochure - Inventing the Future) providing valuable information on industrial property field to public.
The major popularisation activities of the Office in 2013 included:
For more information please see the list of publications issued by the Office http://www.upv.sk/?publikacie
WEB SITE OF THE OFFICE - WWW.UPV.SK
The Office also in 2013 continued with updating the web site daily to provide visitors new information on IP, to inform about upcoming conferences and other events and to update information of all relevant sites within the whole web site.
Except the updating the Office also focused on revitalisation of the web site content in 2013 resulting in easier access to searched information and better orientation of a user on the web site. The Office also started to work on new concept and structure of www.upv.sk as one of its strategic goals within the Strategic Plan of the Office for 2012 - 2016.
There were 135,828 visitors of the web site recorded in 2013; the average number of users was 445 during working days and 163 during weekends. Trade Marks, Patents, Registers and Databases, Utility Models and Contacts were the most visited sites. 66 % of visits were from Slovakia, 5.5 % from Czech Republic and the rest 28.5 % from abroad.
WWW.PATENTOVAT.SK
The Industrial Property Office of SR created the new internet portal - www.patentovat.sk - available to increase the awareness of IP and its protection in the beginning of April. It is an update of the informative multi -medial DVD Intellectual Property - the Unique Deserves Protection! issued by the Office in 2007. The portal reflects new trends in promotion of IP protection and information technologies and is linked to the official web site of the Office www.upv.sk and also the social network
Facebook. The portal www.patentovat.sk focuses on public to popularise IP and to provide information on possibilities of IP protection and related services and products of the Office.
Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
In 2013 3 specialised seminars took place within the international co-operation. The Industrial Property Office of SR in co-operation with the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information organised the seminar IP Protection in EU - services of the Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (trade marks and designs) for Businessmen in Bratislava on September 24, 2013. The seminar with the same name was also organised in co-operation with the Košice Regional Chamber of SCCI in Košice on September 26, 2013. In November 2013 the 5th year of the international conference IP Protection at Universities took place in Zvolen in co-operation with the WIPO and Technical University in Zvolen. The conference focused on national and international designs protection, since the Office co-operates intensively with the Department of Furniture Design and Wood Products, the Faculty of Wood Sciences and Technology, Technical University Zvolen.
Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
In 2013 the Office continued successfully with implementation of the project of education about intellectual property for pupils of elementary and high schools. During 2013 the Office organised 13 excursions with the lecture about IP protection for elementary and high schools and 17 seminars.
IPO SR continued the education programme Intellectual Property accredited by the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the SR also last year. From September 2012 to May 2013 the Modules A - Intellectual Property and Copyright Basis; B - Creativity, its Management, Marketing and Economy and C - Information in the Field of Intellectual Property were running. 16 participants terminated the study in the module C - Information in the Field of Intellectual Property. 46 participants entered the education programme in September 2013.
Presentation of the IPO SR at fairs and exhibitions in Slovakia and also abroad is an important means for providing information and consultations on IP protection. In 2013 the Office participated in five international exhibitions:
The Office also participated in 65th International Trade Fair Ideas - Inventions - New Products iENA 2013 in German Nuremberg in the common stand of European patent offices Internationales Patentinformationszentrum.
During 2013 the exhibitions were installed in the IPO SR premises:
The Office participated in the 9th year of the European festival of science - Researchers' Night. The Office had its expositions in the Avion Shopping Park, Bratislava, Europa Shopping Centre, Banská Bystrica and in the Shopping Centre Optima, Košice.
Other activities
WWW.NEFEJKUJ.SK
Information campaign Intellectual Property: Education, Awareness, Enforcement.
IPO SR under the guidance of the World Intellectual Property Organization launched in May 2013 information campaign "Intellectual Property: Education, Awareness, Enforcement". The first stage www.nefejkuj.sk is aimed at children in the age 10 - 15 years. The campaign's objective is to increase the awareness of young people about IP, its protection and methods of infringing IP rights. The children learn to think, why an original product is better and more moral than a fake and to point out fakes and piracy as the problem of the whole society. Also a questionnaire survey focusing on the knowledge level of young people between 10 - 15 years about IP and forums for discussions at 5 elementary schools in SR were realised within the campaign.
International exchange and sharing of patent information in machine-readable form, e.g., priority documents, bibliographic data, abstracts, search reports, full text information
Bibliographic data and abstracts of the published patent and utility model applications, granted patents and registered utility models in English were supplied to the Espacenet and INPADOC database in electronic form.
The Office sent the copies of patent documents in electronic form monthly within the bilateral cooperation with the European Patent Office related to patent information. The data were subsequently provided for the database Espacenet - administered by the EPO - freely accessible to public in Slovak language on the address http://sk.espacenet.com/ and European patent translations into the Slovak language were used for corpus of language necessary for realisation of another project of bilateral cooperation - Patent Translate.
In 2013 continued the mutual exchange of official gazettes between the IPO SR and other offices also international organisations, including the EPO and the WIPO.
Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information
Participation in the project of the Federative Patent Register conducted by the European Patent Office.
| 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. |