Annual Technical Report 2007 on Industrial Design Information Activities submitted by Poland (SCIT/ATR/ID/2007/PL)

Where URLs are requested below, it is preferred that either URLs which are likely to remain stable over time (three years or more) are provided, or home (main) page URLs are provided with a short explanation of how to access the corresponding information.

The expression "industrial designs" covers industrial designs and models. Offices which issue design patents should report their design patent information activities in this series of Annual Technical Reports.

I. Evolution of registration activities

Changes experienced in terms of application filings and grants (registrations) with respect to the previous year

The Industrial Property Law of 30 June 2000 which applies in the field of industrial property protection, was amended twice in 2007. The Act of 29 June 2007 amending the Industrial Property Law (Official Journal No. 89, item 540) :
-allowed possibility of online filings, specifying technical conditions of online filing and electronic correspondence;
-introduced new regulations concering filing of divisional industrial design application (Art. 108 of Industrial Property Law);
-amended regulations in Art. 108 which specifies components of industrial design application.

Trends or areas experiencing rapid changes with respect to the previous year

In 2007, The Polish Patent Office received 1 669 industrial design applications that is over 5.1% less than in 2006. 1 767 decisions were issued, including 1 555 positive ones. After paying a fee, 1 478 industrial designs have been assigned numbers and entered into the Register. 1 865 certificates of registration of industrial designs were issued.
The Patent Office received from domestic applicants 32 applications for Community industrial design, which were transmitted to the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market.
The number of industrial design registration rights in force on 31 December 2007 was 10 382.

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide statistics related to industrial designs

Statistics related to industrial designs are presented in the online version of the Annual Report of the Patent Office at the following address:
Annual Reports: http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Wydawnictwa/Raporty+Roczne.htm ; http://www.uprp.pl/English/About+the+Polish+Patent+Office/annual/default.htm

II. Matters concerning the generation, reproduction, and distribution of industrial design documents and of secondary sources of industrial design information, i.e., official gazettes

Publishing, including printing, copying techniques and electronic printing

The constantly modernized publication system enables production of the Office's publications on its own. The publishing process is based on the DTP system and covers preparation of data contained in the Office's databases, text editing in Ms Word programme and picture procesing in Adobe Photoshop CS. Final typesetting is made in InDesign 3.0 programme. Printing is performed on the offset machine and digital reproducer.

Main types of announcements of the Office in the field of industrial design information

Information on registered industrial designs in Poland is published in the monthly "Patent Office's Announcements" (in 2007, there were 1 524 announcements).

Mass storage media and microforms used

n/a

Databases and office automation

n/a

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide access to online industrial design gazettes and to other sources of industrial design information, including download of bulk industrial design data

Annual Reports: http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Wydawnictwa/Raporty+Roczne.htm ; http://www.uprp.pl/English/About+the+Polish+Patent+Office/annual/default.htm

III. Matters concerning classifying, reclassifying and indexing of industrial design information according to the classification systems applied

Classification and reclassification activities; Classification system used, e.g., International Classification for Industrial Designs (Locarno Classification), other classification (please indicate whether industrial designs are classified by your Office and, if so, which classification is used)

Annex No. 3 to the Ordinance of the President of the Council of Ministers of 30 January 2002 (as ammended, Official Journal No 40, item 358 and No 106 item 893 of 2005) on filing and considering industrial designs applications applies in the Polish Patent Office in the scope of industrial designs.
PPO uses its own classification based on the 6th edition of Locarno Classification. The existing files are not reclassified. Application documents are scanned and indexed.

Bibliographic data and processing

n/a

IV. Search file establishment and upkeep

Industrial design documentation consists of Polish documentation as well as official bulletins of foreign offices containing registered industrial designs.

File building

As for file building of foreign documentation, in 2007 the PPO received official bulletins from 27 countries, OHIM and WIPO, including, among others, information on industrial designs.

Updating

n/a

Storage, including mass storage media

n/a

Documentation from other offices maintained and/or considered part of the available search file

n/a

V. Activities in the field of computerized search systems for industrial designs

In-house systems (online/offline)

The Office has two internal systems:
-the retrieval system (TULIPAN) with access restricted to examiners. The system provides procedural data concerning industrial designs and ornamental designs.
-the system of administration and search of industrial designs (WZOPRZEM).


External databases

The Office's website offers facilities for accessing Polish designs. Functionality is offered to customers to receive periodic information, information on procedure and fees and procedural information from the PPO's databases. Links to WIPO Designs and OHIM Designs Online are also provided.

Administrative management systems (e.g., register, legal status, statistics and administrative support)

System (WZOPRZEM) based on the IBM DB2 and Java technology which provide administration of bibliographic data of designs in the course of the whole procedure.

Equipment used (hardware, including the types of terminal and network used, and software), data carriers used

PPO workstations infrastructure combines around 4 different types of workstations configured specially to meet EPO applications requirements. All of those workstations (approximately 580 PCs) are secured by McAfee antivirus and antispam system. All network connections are based on CISCO and Alcatel equipment with 10 Mb access to the internet. Server infrastructure for the On-line Portal includes 9 application servers; 5 data base servers; 10 TB build-up array; back-ups for Tivoli Storage Management, Fujitsu FI-5900C scanner, 125 packages for the purposes of qualified signatures. On-Line Portal servers are supported by local UPSes and they are also hooked to Main power supply unit for PPO. Back office hardware located in secured/zoned Data Centre with fire alarm and CTV system, redundant air-conditioning and technical floor.

Most of workstations run under Windows 2000, and server's operational systems are Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10. The SAN mass memory network was configured in order to make matrices available to the computing systems.

VI. Administration of industrial design information products and services available to the public (relating to facilities, e.g., for lodging applications, registering designs, assisting clients with search procedures, obtaining official publications and registry extracts)

Planning, administration, automation, security

n/a

Collection management, preservation

Full text specifications of industrial designs registered in the PPO organised in classified collections were displayed for the users in our Office's Library. The PPO receives official bulletins from 27 countries which are available to users.
In addition to the search facility, PPO website provides information relating to design registration including forms and fees, legal decisions, guides for applicants. Information is also available from the Office's Information Unit.

Information services available to the public (including computerized services and search files contained in libraries remote from your Office and industrial design information posted by your Office on the World Wide Web)

Information on industrial designs is available in the 27 PATLIB centres in the form of CD-ROMS, DVDs, internet databases and printed bulletins.

URLs of web pages of the Office's website for electronic filing of industrial design applications

Filing with the PPO:
National Procedure:
http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Procedura+krajowa/
International Procedure:
http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Procedura+miedzynarodowa/
Forms (including those for electronic filing):
http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Procedura+krajowa/Formularze/Formularze.htm
Databases:
Polish:
http://www.uprp.pl/patentwebaccess/databasechoose.aspx?language=polski
English:
http://www.uprp.pl/patentwebaccess/databasechoose.aspx?language=english
Procedures before the PPO - Basic Information:
http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Informacje+o+UPRP/Podstawowe+informacje+i+poradniki/
http://www.uprp.pl/English/About+the+Polish+Patent+Office/Basic+information/

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide information on business procedures such as: filing, publication, examination and registration procedures related to industrial designs; opposition and appeal procedures related to industrial designs; etc.

see above

URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that provide a description of information products and services offered by the Office (e.g., industrial design search service(s) and industrial design databases), as well as information on how to access and utilize them

see above

VII. Matters concerning mutual exchange of industrial design documentation and information

International or regional cooperation in the exchange of industrial design information, e.g., in the form of official gazettes

In 2007, the PPO sent "Patent Office's Announcements" to 35 countries in the amount of 400 copies.

Exchange of machine-readable information, e.g., data contained on CD-ROM or magnetic tape

Within international exchange the PPO received foreign official gazettes containing data on industrial designs on paper and on CD-ROMs.

VIII. Matters concerning education and training, including technical assistance to developing countries (please indicate URLs of web pages of the Office’s website wherever appropriate)

Promotional activities (seminars, exhibitions, visits, advertising, etc.)

In 2007, within industrial property protection the PPO organised or participated in the following events:
-Conference "Towards Innovation-Oriented Economy" organized in Warsaw by the Patent Office in cooperation with the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development and Ministry of Science and Higher Education;
-International Innovation Fair WIPRO 2007 Knowledge-Innovation-Development, organised at the University of Technology and Life Sciences in Bydgoszcz (participation of the PPO in the seminars and organisation of promotional stand);
-Conference on "Disseminating IP Knowledge in Universities" organized in the Senate by the Polish Patent Office and the European Patent Academy
-Annual "Scientific Picnic" of the Bis Radio in Warsaw (promotional stand);
-International Fairs in Poznan (promotional stand);
-Conference on "The EU Systems of Industrial Property Protection" in Sandomierz, organized by the Patent Office within the EU twinning program Transition Facility "Strengthening the protection of intellectual and industrial property rights" and with the co-operation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development;
-International Symposium in Krakow on "Industrial Property in Innovative Economy - Technology Transfer from Universities to Industry" co-organized by the Patent Office, European Patent Office, Krakow University of Technology and Jagiellonian University;
-Industrial Technology, Science and Innovation Fair in Gdansk (promotional stand);
-7th National Educational Forum for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises in Warsaw organized by the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (promotional stand);
-Ceremony of prize award in the 5th edition of the competition for the best artistic poster as well as postdoctoral, doctoral, master's and student's theses on the subject of industrial property organized by the Patent Office.
Additionally, a series of posters and information boards were designed and published for the fairs and exhibitions.

Training courses for national and foreign participants

Within the twinning programme project with the Danish Patent Office "Enforcement of the protection of industrial and intellectual property rights" a series of seminars and workshops were conducted from February to September 2007. In cooperation with patent information centres in 9 provinces, the workshops were conducted in the following locations:
-Conference Centre of the University of Technology in Poznan
-University of Zielona Gora
-Regional Centre of Patent Information at the Chief Institute of Mining in Katowice
-University of Technology in Gdansk
-Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torun
-University of Technology in Wroclaw
-University of Technology in Kielce
-University of Science and Technology in Krakow
-University of Technology in Rzeszow
Every year Polish Patent Office organises trainings to raise professional skills of its staff.
In 2007, after completing two-year training, 12 Office's employees obtained examiner's qualifications and 16 employees who completed their training and passed the qualifying examinations obtained assistant expert's qualifications.
Additionally, language courses for PPO employees (languages: English, French, German, Spanish)were organised.
Within the framework of the traning program for assistant experts, and for newly recruited civil service members, 12 lectures were given on industrial property law and responsibilities of the PPO for the total of 70 participants.
Moreover, staff members benefited from many specialist training courses organised by professional educational centres such as: National School of Public Administration, Foundation in Support of Local Democracy, Mazovian Voivodeship Centre for Personel Training. The subject matter of the trainings included the issues of public procurement, management, finances, structural funds, information technologies and labour law.

Assistance to developing countries (sending consultants and experts, receiving trainees from developing countries, etc.)

n/a

IX.Other general information related to the Office that is available on the Internet -- URLs of web pages of the Office’s website that:

provide information on legislation related to industrial designs

Legislation: http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Akty+prawne/ ; http://www.uprp.pl/English/Law/

contain the Annual Report of the Office

Annual Reports: http://www.uprp.pl/Polski/Wydawnictwa/Raporty+Roczne.htm ; http://www.uprp.pl/English/About+the+Polish+Patent+Office/annual/default.htm

if necessary, provide further information related to the topics referred to in the current ATR

n/a

provide open source codes related to industrial design information systems

n/a

contain industrial design-related news regarding the Office

n/a

X. Other relevant matters