Outline of main policies and plans aimed at development of patent information activities and expected time frames for their realization
In 2018, the Strategy of Activities at the Office until 2022, which includes activities in the area of patent information, was adopted. The Office intends in 2018 - 2022 to pursue the following main priorities to improve the quality of services provided and to optimize the Office's activities:
New projects launched or resumed this year in the context of the policies and plans mentioned above, short description: aims, partners, tasks
The IPO SR co-operated with the European Patent Office (EPÚ) particularly on projects realised within the Co-operation Plan for 2016 – 2020. The main priorities of cooperation within the EPO were the implementation of projects Federative European Patent Register and Quality at Source. The aim of both projects is to establish a common European web register containing data on European patents granted by EPO and their status in the national phases of maintaining the European patent by the national offices of the EPO Member States. Register is focused on legal information (e.g. legal status of a patent).
In cooperation with the EPO, the Office continued to implement tools to ensure data conversion according to WIPO standards for the needs of the "Quality at Source" Project. By joining the FePR service in 2019, the Office continued to provide data on the legal status of European patents with designation for the Slovak Republic.
Main areas of patent information activities and related information and communication technology (ICT) practices which were in the focus of attention last year
Activities in patent information area were focused on the maintenance of the system of making data available from the Office registers on the Internet (Webregisters II), its regular updating and modifications related to changes in legislation. Selected data in record details are linked to European and international systems (EPO Register, Espacenet, WIPO Patentscope, etc.).
The projects and activities mentioned in the item above were realised in the co-operation with the EPO.
Statistics: changes in terms of application filings and grants with respect to previous year; trends or areas experiencing rapid changes
Patents
In 2019, 234 patent applications were filed with the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic, which is 1.3 % more than in the previous year. PCT applications make up 2.1 % (5 applications) of all applications filed.
The number of applications filed by domestic applicants (205) decreased by 5.1 %, while the increase of foreign applicants (28) by 100 % was recorded. The largest share of the total number of 28 foreign patent applications were applications from the Czech Republic (19).
The number of granted patents in 2019 was 91, which was a decrease of 16.5 % compared to the previous year.
22 international applications were filed with the IPO SR as the receiving office under the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) last year.
Within the Visegrad Patent Institute (VPI) acting as the International Searching Authority, 4 international searches and written opinions to international applications were drawn up.
In the period from January 1, 2019 to December 31, 2019, 44 applications for the grant of a supplementary protection certificate were submitted. All applications were submitted by foreign applicants, mostly from the USA - 25, Switzerland - 3, Denmark - 3 and Germany - 3.
32 supplementary protection certificates were granted.
For comparison, we present statistical data on filed patent applications and on granted patents in the years 2015 to 2019.
By December 31, 2019, there were 20,981 valid patents registered in the Slovak Republic; 902 of them were granted by a national route.
The largest share in the total number of applications consists of applications from the following areas:
Analytical, measuring, control technologies (12.39 %), Electrical machinery and equipment, electricity (9.83 %), Materials, metallurgy (7.69 %), Transport (6.84 %).
European Patents
In 2019, 4,001 translations of European patent documents were made available.
As of December 31, 2019, there were 20,079 European patents valid in the Slovak Republic.
Utility Models
In 2019, the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic received 325 utility model applications; it has decreased by 16.2 % compared to the previous year. The number of applications filed by domestic applicants decreased by 12.2 % (281). The share of domestic applicants makes up 86.5 % of the total number of 325 filed applications.
A decrease by 4.5 % was recorded in the number of registered utility models (322).
For comparison, we present statistical data on filed utility model applications and on registered utility models in the years 2015 to 2019:
By December 31, 2019, there were 1,872 valid utility models in the Slovak Republic.
The most registered utility models are from the following areas: Analytical, measuring, control technologies (11.49 %), Civil engineering, construction, mining (10.87 %) and Transport (9.01 %).
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 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 there are the individual areas of IP subject matters and relevant information sources with links to website of the Office, where they are available:
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
https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/
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
https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/
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
https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/
Contacts
http://www.upv.sk/?contacts
In the past the Office in the cooperation with the EPO implemented the system EPTOS enabling to file with the Office:
- European patent applications
- National patent applications
- National utility model applications
- Applications for granting supplementary protection certificates
- Translations of patent claims of published European patent applications with designation for the Slovak Republic into the Slovak language
- Translations of European patent files with designation for the Slovak Republic into the Slovak language
Subsequently filed documents to:
- 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
The mentioned electronic filings shall be signed with electronic signature.
The Office offers a customer service for electronic filing issues. The users may find the help desk contact information at the following link http://www.upv.sk/?uzivatelsky-servis-a-helpdesk. At the help desk they may get general information on electronic filing via the EPTOS system and troubleshoot potential problems. In this part of the website can also be found user manuals and FAQs, which are available at the following link http://www.upv.sk/?elektronicke-podavanie-prihlasok-faq.
Since 1 February 2014 the Central Public Administration Portal offers a form to serve the general agenda. By means of this form it is possible to make electronic filings to every public institution in the Slovak Republic, thus also to the IPO SR. From the 1st quarter of 2017, the Office also made specific electronic forms for patents, utility models, supplementary protection certificates and trade marks and designs available to users within the deployment of the IPO Electronic Services Project. The Office continues in operating the system EPTOS, which was implemented in the cooperation with the EPO.
In 2019, there were filed 234 national patent applications, 146 applications were filed electronically representing 62 % of the total; 325 national utility model applications, 206 applications were filed electronically representing 63 % of the total; 44 supplementary protection certificates, 31 applications were filed electronically representing 70 % of the total.
Availability of the application dossier in electronic form
Since 2019, the Office has been keeping records of files and records of the specialised registry (files and records related to proceedings on industrial property rights subject matters applications) through the Fabasoft electronic information system for registry management, which is integrated with the Inventio system and web registers. From the point of view of the registry, the application files are kept in a combined form, i.e. items of the file are, depending on the form of delivery or dispatch, in electronic and paper form.
An overview of items of proceedings for each application is available in Webregisters in the record detail in the Protocol tab without possibility to read individual items contents.
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 2019.01 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 MPT 2019.01 had been used in the Office for classification the Slovak patent documents until the end of 2019.
In cooperation with the WIPO, the IPCPUB software tool has been used since 2009 for operating the Slovak and English versions of the IPC in a standardized electronic form on the Internet. Slovak editions of the IPC in the electronic form are made accessible to public and the Office employees on the site http://ipc.indprop.gov.sk.
Digitalisation and indexing
As part of the creation of patent documents, monthly additions of patent documents ((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) are regularly created and indexed in electronic form (pdf and xml formats).
Processing of bibliographic data
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 EPO regularly to publish them in the Espacenet database, in which their machine translations 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
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 were provided (European patent, international application filed under PCT).
The information were provided personally, by phone (+421 48 4300 131), by post and e-mail address infocentrum@indprop.gov.sk.
During 2019, 5 591 requests for information were processed at the information centre (of which 4 138 by telephone, 1 292 by e-mail, 147 in person, by post 14).
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.
Three department employees performed pre-diagnostics service. In 2019, 32 pre-diagnostics were realised.
Naturally, the attention continued to be focused on innovative companies and institutions - for example, the Institute of Animal Physiology, Košice, an independent institute of the SAS; TANAX TRUCS a. s., Bratislava; Nexis Fibers a. s., Humenné; Banská Bystrica company EIBEN s. r. o., manufacturer of cryochambers Cryoniq s.r.o., Nové Zámky.
As in previous years, the IPO SR also promoted the protection of traditional craft and food products by protected geographical indications. In Rimavské Zalužany, the local craftsman Ladislav Hedvigi produces club toys decorated with traditional tracery decoration; the Company of Voľanský Family from Bardejov offers honeydew of high quality (awarded at world exhibitions); the liqueur made from hand-picked Orava blueberries - Hafirovica - is produced by the company of married couple Beňuš, Hafirovica s. r. o. from Oravská Polhora.
In cooperation with the Slovak Design Center, the Office also this year promoted the importance of protecting interesting design works. Again, the Office was approached by designers, among them Vlasta Kubušová from Crafting Plastics! Studio, focusing on the use of degradable bioplastics in everyday consumer products. In the case of the Studio, we recommended industrial property protection not only by design, but also by utility model.
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)
Main types of publications of the Office are:
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. Moreover, all kinds of patent specifications published in the Official Gazette regularly in the PDF format are available in the Office´s web databases https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/, 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 fulltext 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.
The following numbers of documents were published in the Official Gazette in 2019:
151 patent applications;
96 granted patents;
303 utility model applications;
326 utility model registrations;
45 applications for supplementary protection certificates;
36 granted supplementary protection certificates;
3 translations of patent claims of European patent applications with designation for the Slovak Republic;
4001 translations of European patents with designation for the Slovak Republic;
19 corrected translations of European patents with designation for the Slovak Republic; and
82 translations of amended versions of European patents with designation for the Slovak Republic.
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 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
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
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
http://www.upv.sk/?other-products
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 https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/ 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 EPO based on the information from the IPO SR Official Gazette.
Other sources
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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. The Document Management System (DMS) and some of the data required for Webregisters publishing have been moved to Fabasoft from Inventio. The Fabasoft system is also a central system integrated into some common modules of the Central Public Administration Portal (electronic mailbox module, authentication module, payment module, central electronic mailbox module, electronic delivery module and process integration and data integration module) to declared reference registers within the Slovak Republic (Register of Legal Entities, Entrepreneurs and Public Authorities; Natural Persons Register; Register of Addresses) and also with other systems of the Office such as the Electronic Forms Module and Webregisters.
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; Zotac Zbox.
CENTOS 7
Citrix XenApp 7.1906
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 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 https://wbr.indprop.gov.sk/webregistre/.
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 II. 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 and the non-patent literature (20 titles of technical periodicals and 9 735 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 million documents). However the majority of the patent documentation is currently received on electronic carriers. In 2019 the regular annual accession of optical discs reached 203 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:
In the past the Office had received 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 2019 the patent documents collection was supplemented by documents stored on optical discs from these states: Canada, China, Japan and Republic of Korea.
Patent and utility model gazettes form also part of the available search files of the Office. In 2019, within the frame of mutual exchange, the IPO SR continued in receiving gazettes from the following states and organizations: Bulgaria and Kyrgyzstan.
The collection of search CD-ROMs:
ESPACE – ACCESS EP – A (1997-2004)
ESPACE – ACCESS EP – B (1994-2004)
ESPACE – ACCESS EP – A, EP-B (2005-2015)
ESPACE – UK (1979-2016)
ESPACE – AT – A (1990-2016)
ESPACE – AT – B (1990-2016)
ESPACE – AT – U (2005-2016)
ESPACE – DK – B (1990-2016)
ESPACE – DK – C (1990-2016)
ESPACE – SI (1993-2015)
ESPACE – ES (1990-2010)
ESPACE – BENELUX (BE-A, LU-A, NL-A, NL-C) (1991-2011)
ESPACE – CH (1990-2008)
PAJ (Patent Abstracts of Japan) (1976-2019)
KPA (Korean Patent Abstracts) (2007-2019)
Chinese Patent Bibliography Abstract (1985-2019)
Patent Applications of Canada – CA – A (1999-2019)
Granted Patents of Canada – CA – B (2000-2019)
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)
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 and data since 2002 - supplementary protection certificates).
Administrative management system is based on Lotus Domino and Fabasoft eGov Suite.
In January 2017, system Fabasoft eGov Suite was put into operation Fabasoft eGov Suite also extended for the administration of a specialised registry related to industrial property rights subject matters.
Other matters
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Patent library: equipment, collection management, network of patent libraries in the country, cooperation with foreign patent libraries
In 2019, the Office’s reading room has been visited by 63 users. In total there were provided 52 borrowings of patent and other literature made available to the public and 883 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 2019 there were performed 4 state of the art patent searches, 33 patent searches with commentary and 22 searches on bibliographic data.
The Office’s reading room serves as a WIPO deposit library as well. The deposit library fund includes 322 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 9:00 to 14:30.
Collecting, acquisitions, preparation
In the last year were processed 913 patent documents in paper form and 203 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 817 359 documents, out of which 816 446 entries represented documents in electrical form. 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 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 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 serves 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, 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.
Representatives of Centres and Contact Points participated in 2019 in the Conference organised by the Office on the occasion of the World Intellectual Property Day on April 27, and PATLIB Centres representatives at the Slovak Centre of Scientific and Technical Information in Bratislava, the State Scientific Library in Banská Bystrica and the State Scientific Library in Košice representatives also participated in the Summit PATLIB. The Summit, which was organised by the European Patent Office in cooperation with the host Portuguese Institute of Industrial Property, was held in May 6 – 7, 2019, in Porto. It was a strategic meeting to reflect on the concept of developing PATLIB Centres and to prepare the ground for reorienting PATLIB Centres to highly qualified and various kinds of modern services providers. The PATLIB Centres employees had the possibility to participate in the educational programme Intellectual Property for free. In 2019, two employees from the State Scientific Library in Banská Bystrica completed the course.
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 at 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 the Košice Regional Chamber premises, the Open Day of the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic was organised. During that day, the Office´s employees provided provided interested entrepreneurs with information concerning a general overview of intellectual property, as well as search options and the basics of document searching.
Director of Patent Department and Director of Trade Marks and Designs Department provided the Bratislava Regional Chamber with the latest information in the field of industrial property protection of patents, designs and trade marks, and the Director of Receiving and Changes Department presented the applications electronic filing and subsequent filings.
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 providing valuable information on industrial property field to public.
Publication activities of the Office during 2019 include:
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 public. In addition, it has been becoming the effective means of communication. It allows the public to access quickly to information and databases related to IP. Both Slovak and English versions provide information about upcoming conferences, seminars and other events.
In 2019, the number of visits of the IPO SR web portal was approximately 181,000. Most users were from Slovakia (approximately 67 %), followed by users from France (11 %), the Czech Republic (approximately 5 %), the USA (4 %), and surprisingly from South Korea (up to 2 %). 18 % of users are regularly returning portal users. Databases and web registers (9.4 %) are the most visited subpages of the portal. They are followed by trade marks (9 %), patents (3.2 %) and utility models (1.5 %). More than 60 % of visitors visit the pages directly through the link to a particular subpage – not via the main page of the portal first.
The Office regularly publishes selected data from Registers in its Webregisters. 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, protocol entries and full-text search in industrial property subject matters.
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 50, by the end of 2019 there were 530.
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.
Publications related to different business procedures and patent information sources available to users, for example, books, brochures, Internet publications, etc.
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Office's initiatives on providing foreign patent information in the local language(s) (e.g., machine translation tools, translation of abstracts)
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Cooperation with universities, research centers, technology and innovation support centers, etc.
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.
4 lectures were held for elementary schools, 13 for secondary schools and 6 for universities. The lectures for elementary and secondary schools included the Office excursion and Scientific Toy. 12 lectures were held for entrepreneurs. For educational activities aimed at small and middle-sized entrepreneurs, the cooperation with their professional associations in particular regions was proved successful.
At the turn of April and May, the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic carried out an internship programme resulting from the Cooperation Agreement with Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. The two-week programme was attended by students of the Faculty of Law of UMB (4) and students of the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations of UMB (4).
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 World Intellectual Property Day
Every year, on April 26, we celebrate the World Intellectual Property Day to remind ourselves of the importance of intellectual property rights (patents, trade marks, designs and copyrights) in promoting innovations and creativity. This year's World Intellectual Property Day campaign – Reach for Gold – looked closer into the world of sport. The campaign explored how innovation, creativity and intellectual property rights protect the development of sport and promote the enjoyment of sport around the world. On this occasion, the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic in Banská Bystrica organised the 19th Annual Conference Intellectual Property in Slovakia. The conference featured topics on copyright in sport, intellectual property rights infringement in organising events, winners of the National Design Award 2018 and innovative patent video technology were presented.
On September 12, 2019, the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic in cooperation with the European Union Office for Intellectual Property organised the Conference Intellectual Property and its Impact on the State Economy the aim of which was to highlight the alarming impact of intellectual property rights infringements on a global as well as on a regional levels. The Executive Director of the European Union Office for Intellectual Property Christian Archambeau and the Minister of Culture of the Slovak Republic Ľubica Laššáková accepted the invitation to the Conference.
Researchers' Night
On September 27, 2019, the Office joined the thirteenth year of the Science Festival in Slovakia - European Researchers' Night 2019. The IPO SR employees participated in the project in Banská Bystrica and Žilina, where they provided information on the intellectual property protection to both laic and professional public. Quizzes about inventions and inventors were prepared for children.
The IPO SR representatives participated at five international fairs in Nitra and Bratislava (Danubius gastro Exposhop Gastropack, Fishing, Hunting and Beekeeping, Furniture and Living, CONECO – RACIOENERGIA, the International Engineering Fair and Agrokomplex in Nitra), where they promoted the Office´s activities and provided information on the field of industrial property protection.
For the first time the Office in cooperation with the Banská Bystrica Information Centre prepared for the public the Town Wandering, regularly organised by the Banská Bystrica Information Centre and this year it focused on the Industrial Property Office of SR and its activities. The actions had more than 60 participants.
In April, the exhibition Made in Paper, which is a joint project of the Technical University in Zvolen and the Tomas Bata University in Zlín, was opened in the entrance area of the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic. Students from the Department of Furniture and Interior Design of the Technical University in Zvolen and the Tomas Bata University in Zlín, inspired by paper, explored the unique properties of this material as a supporting construction material that could be applied, for example, in furniture production.
Last year the Office repeatedly participated in the competition National Design Prize 2019, organised by the Slovak Design Centre with the Ministry of Culture of SR. The IPO SR Head of the Office JUDr. Ing. Petra Presperínová attended the ceremonial announcement of the results.
Education and training: training courses, e-learning modules (URLs), seminars, exhibitions, etc.
Education Programme Intellectual Property
Based on the decision of the Ministry of Education, Science, Research and Sport of the Slovak Republic from April 30, 2019, and the certificate of re-accreditation No. 1308/2019/54/1 the IPO SR provides Educational Programme the Intellectual Property.
Since January 2019, the Programme Intellectual property continued at the Office by the Module B – CREATIVITY – ITS MANAGEMENT, MARKETING AND ECONOMICS, which terminated in February 2019. From March 2019 to May 2019 the Module C – INFORMATION IN THE FIELS OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY – was running. 22 participants of the Programme successfully completed module B in February and in May 2019 22 participants completed the Module C. In the school year 2019/2020 since September 26, the Institute Intellectual Property continues by the Module D – INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY LAW. It has been running all school year and consists of the following units: Industrial Rights and Related and Associated Rights, Patent and Trade Mark Rights. 20 participants attend the Module D. In October 2019 6 participants successfully defended their final works.
At the turn of April and May, the Industrial Property Office of the Slovak Republic carried out an internship programme resulting from the Cooperation Agreement with Matej Bel University in Banská Bystrica. The two-week programme was attended by students of the Faculty of Law of UMB (4) and students of the Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations of UMB (4).
The Industrial Property Office of SR in cooperation with the Slovak Chamber of Patent Attorneys organised in November 2019 the professional examination to perform patent attorney activities. The examination was successfully passed by one applicant.
Other activities
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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 EPO 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.
Priority documents have been supplied to applicants on request in paper form.
Participation in international or regional activities and projects related to patent information
Participation in the PATLIB summit in May 2019 in Porto
Participation in the EPOPIC 2019 conference in Bucharest
Assistance to developing countries
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Other activities
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