Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

WWW.OAMI.EUROPA.EU

COPIES AND INSPECTION OF COPIES AND INSPECTION OF FILESFILES

P. RODINGERDepartment for Designs and Register (OHIM)

Design Liaison MeetingAlicante, 8-9/10/2010

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

• Legal basis

• Design Registration Certificates

• Certified copies and file inspection

• Automatic provision of certified copies

Program

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

LEGAL BASISLEGAL BASIS

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Article 74 CDR – Inspection of files- After publication a design may be inspected on request- Before publication, this requires consent of the applicantArticle 17 CDIR – Certificate of registration- After publication, the Office shall issue a certificate …- The holder may request certified / uncertified copies of

the certificate of registration upon payment of a feeArticle 41 CDIR – Signature, name, seal- Any decision, communication or notice from the Office- Indicate department / division and name of responsible- Signed, or, instead carry printed or stamped sealArticle 74 CDIR – Procedure for the inspection of files- Either the original or a copy- On request, inspection shall be effected by means of

issuing copies of file documents (certified / uncertified)- Fee

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

DESIGN REGISTRATION DESIGN REGISTRATION CERTIFICATESCERTIFICATES

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

RCD Certificate

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Short process description

• Certificates are issued once a RCD is registered and published (part A.1 of the RCD bulletin)

• The process of creation starts immediately after publication.

• RCD certificates are sent electronically to an outside supplier who prints and then distributes the certificates

• During the 2nd half of 2010 OHIM will introduce e-certificates for designs (they exist already for trade marks)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

E-certificate

In the Publication section of RCD Online, a new column will be added with information about the RCD e-certificates.

This information will consist of a link labelled “Registration Certificate”, together with the publication date and an indication of the size of the electronic document.

The RCD e-certificate is intended to make certificate delivery faster and smoother and make storage easier for users. By clicking on the link a PDF-document will be downloaded that can be easily printed or saved into the user’s own archiving system.

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

How to get an E-certificate

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

How to get an E-certificate

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

How to get an E-certificate

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

How to get an E-certificate

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

SHORT DEMO: RCD ONLINE

http://oami.europa.eu/RCDOnline/RequestManager

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

CERTIFIED COPIES AND CERTIFIED COPIES AND FILE INSPECTIONFILE INSPECTION

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

• Inspection requests for CTMs and RCDs (= copies of documents) :– Anybody may request– Applications– Registrations– Any documents in the file (some restrictions apply)

• Extracts of the CTM and RCD register:– List current status of a file, including recordals such as

licenses, and other events such as Invalidities.

• On site inspection of files, not used in practice

• Online Access to Files (OAF) for CTMs

The main services

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

• Documents requested may be certified or uncertified

• Some countries require authentication or legalisation of certified copies in order to accept them as a priority or any other claim before their respective national offices / authorities

• The European Commission legalises these documents:– The Head of the Permanent Representation of the

European Commission in Spain is authorised to authenticate documents issued by the OHIM

– Our colleague Daniele Messa, in secondment there, carries out the day-to-day work

Certified / uncertified / authenticated

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs) Online Access to CTM files (OAF)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Provides CTM related documents online

• Accessible via CTM-ONLINE

• Updated every day

• Document downloadable in PDF format

• More than 40 000 documents downloaded every week

Restrictions:

- CTMA not published – access restricted to the applicant or representative via MyPage

- Confidential documents not disclosed to third parties

Online Access to CTM files (OAF)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Inspection production

0

2,000

4,000

6,000

8,000

10,000

12,000

14,000

2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Information

Copy of filedocuments

Extract ofdatabase

Extract ofregister

Certified copyof certificates

Copy ofapplications

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Inspection timeliness

0102030405060708090

100

1qtr'08

2qtr'08

3qtr'08

4qtr'08

1qtr'09

2qtr'09

3qtr'09

4qtr'09

1qtr'10

2qtr'10

3qtr'10

From request to issueance in 14 days (in %)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

YOU HAVE ON YOUR TABLE AN EXAMPLE OF ACERTIFIED COPIE OF A REGISTRATION CERTIFICATE

Example of a certified copy

The different elements are:• Cover page (in five languages)

• Certifying that the enclosed document is an exact copy of the registration certificate of a particular design

• Number of the design• Registration date of the design• Printed signature of the official responsible• Stamped seal

• Registration certificate• 100% copy of the initial registration certificate• A stamp indicating that this is a copy

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

AUTOMATIC PROVISION AUTOMATIC PROVISION OF CERTIFIED COPIESOF CERTIFIED COPIES

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Inspection Requests

0

2000

4000

6000

8000

10000

12000

14000

1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Reception Mode of the Inspection Requests (over the last years)

163 1.627

14.321

58.216

0

10000

20000

30000

40000

50000

60000

70000

MyPage Other Mail Fax

Statistics (1/3)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

0

20.000

40.000

60.000

Type of Dossier (over the last years)

Nb 54.825 19.379 123

CTM RCD Int. Registration

Type of requests (over the last years)

32.124

23.708

9.304

1.781

6.621

2.071115

0

5.000

10.000

15.000

20.000

25.000

30.000

35.000

1.ApplicationForm

2. Certificate 3. Extractfrom theRegister

4. Extractfrom the

Database

5. Copy ofdocuments

6.Information

7. Inpsectionin Situ

Statistics (2/3)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1600

1800

2000

Certified Not Certified

Request (CTM / RCD) (over the last years)

Certified NotCertified

Certified / All Documents

1. Application Form 1876 23 44,07%

2. Certificate 1285 24 30,19%

3. Extract from the Register 795 6 18,68%

4. Extract from the Database 143 3 3,36%

5. Copy of documents 39 63 0,92%

Statistics (3/3)

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

We provide a good copy and include text that states that the copy is directly taken from our database,

We do not accept that this way of providing the certificate introduces less safeguards than sending a paper copy today,

We maintain against payment the present way of certifying, but we try to convince people that in case of doubt they can very simply verify on line whether the copy does indeed reflect the contents of our database.

Speed up the provision of certified copies

Objectives

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

Project

Develop a solution for Application Form and Certificate.Allow users in OAF to get a certified copy of the Certificate*

or the Application Form** that includes:• A copy of the document stamped with a mention than the

copy comes from our database• A cover letter identical to the cover letters used currently.

It also includes a link to access to the CTM/RCD online.The same document is sent when generated internally by

the Office.User will not see any difference between the online

document and the one issued from OHIM

* Available for RCD when RCD eCertificate goes live** Application form not available for RCD

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

YOU ARE RECEIVING AN EXAMPLE OF AN AUTOMATED COPY

Example of an automated certified copy

• The seal on the cover sheet

Please compare with the first example and find the differences (take your time)

• Header and footer on all pages of the copied document

• The footer contains a printed signature, the date and the file number on each page

• There is a staple instead of an eye

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

We need to adapt (IP offices, Courts)

Paper copies have been around for decades and decades. Everybody has become accustomed to them.

The Internet has changed the way we do business and what has required paper before can now easily be done electronically.

Our data bases (CTM and RCD Online) are the reliable source. They are freely available and can be consulted 24/7.

We all will need to adapt to this.

And this affects of course the IP Offices (priority documents) but also the Courts.

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)

WWW.OAMI.EUROPA.EU

Information: (+ 34) 965 139 100 (switchboard)

(+ 34) 965 139 400 (e-business technical incidents)

(+ 34) 965 131 344 (main fax)

information@oami.europa.eu

e-businesshelp@oami.europa.eu

Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs)Avenida de Europa, 4E-03008 AlicanteSPAIN