Slovenia: Patent and Trademark Applications Increase, Design Applications Decrease in 2014

The Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) has published its annual report for 2014, which includes statistics related to patents, trademarks and designs.

According to the report, the total number of national patent and trademark applications slightly increased compared to the previous year. An upward trend can be also noticed in terms of Supplementary Protection Certificate (SPC) applications.

To the contrary, the number of national design applications decreased to just 75 filed applications in 2014; this number remains low compared to the number of patent and trademark applications, 459 and 1,517 respectively. The reason for such a low number of design applications could be the lack of information on the scope of exclusive design rights and the registration procedure.

Furthermore, in 2014, approximately 16 percent fewer patents and 9 percent fewer trademarks matured to registration than in 2013. Similarly, the number of registered national designs slightly fell compared to previous years.

In 2014, the SIPO received 85 oppositions against national trademark applications and 32 oppositions against international registrations designating Slovenia.

The report shows a negative trend regarding international trademarks designating Slovenia. The SIPO explains that this is a common trend in all EU countries due to the popularity and practicality of the Community trademark system, which enables trademark protection on the entire EU territory in the sense that applicants do not need to designate each country individually.

The number of recorded changes in the SIPO’s database rose by approximately 55 percent. In over half of the cases it concerned the recordal of a pledge or the alteration thereof.

The SIPO annual report also notes that the number of administrative procedure delays is 151 in terms of trademarks and designs, the reason for this being a continuous decrease in the number of examiners at the SIPO.

Interestingly, the Administrative Court of Slovenia did not receive any lawsuits against the decisions in patent and design matters in 2014, whereas 10 administrative lawsuits were filed with respect to trademark decisions.

Prepared by: Andrej Bukovnik, Barbara Mencin

For more information, please contact slovenia@petosevic.com.

Source: Slovenian IPO Annual Report for 2014