 |
 |
Full report of 2005 (15,2MB, .pdf format).
Lithuanian admission to the European Union (EU) and joining the European Patent Convention (EPC) on 1 December, 2004 turned a new page in the development of the protection of the industrial property system in the Republic of Lithuania.
Year 2005 was the 15th year of the activity of the State Patent Bureau (SPB) of the Republic of Lithuania.
As Lithuania became the 30th member of the European Patent Organization (EPO), we now implement the provisions of the seven international agreements administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and EPC.
The mission of SPB is to implement the policy of the Republic of Lithuania in the industrial property object protection sphere, legalizing exclusive rights to the industrial property. Strategic objectives:
When Lithuania celebrated the first anniversary of joining the EPC, the minister of Justice, Gintautas Bužinskas noticed that the strategic objective to joint the common area of the European patent system had already been reached, therefore, now more attention should be allotted not only for the international relations, but also for encouraging work with the representatives of the business of the country and authors of the inventions.
SPB was established by the Government of the Republic of Lithuania on 12 April, 1991 and in 2000 it was ascribed into the monitoring sphere of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Lithuania and according to its provisions it implements the policy of the Republic of Lithuania in the protection of the industrial property rights sphere, registers and issues the patents and certificates to the natural and legal persons from the Republic of Lithuania and foreign countries following the procedure set in the laws, which grant the exclusive rights to the objects of the industrial property in the territory of the Republic of Lithuania, carries out activities, related to the international registration of the trademarks pursuant to the protocol on the Madrid agreement of the international trademark registration, implements the Resolution of the EU on the Trademarks Community and the provisions of the Community Design, implements the provisions of the Paris convention on the protection of the industrial property and other international agreements in the spheres of invention patenting, topographies of the semiconductor products, designs, trademark registration, performs the functions of the central industrial property service pursuant to the EU legal acts and EPC, represents the republic of Lithuania in international organizations and EU institutions in the industrial property sphere, organizes the informational and publishing activity of the industrial property protection and carries out all the functions of the establisher of the Lithuanian Technical Library.
Improvement of the protection system of the national industrial property remained the priority direction of the activity in 2005 following international contacts and EU provisions as well as strengthening of the administrative capacities of SPB and increase of the efficiency, which reached 2 percent due to the efforts of all the personnel of SPB. The amount of the state taxes gathered for the registration of the industrial property objects was 10 percent bigger than that of 2004.
During 15 years of the existence of SPB four state registers managed by SPB registered more than 44 thousand of exclusive rights to the industrial property objects.
In 2006 SPB will keep on performing the functions of the central service for the protection of industrial property rights. Further progress will be sought in improving the level of the protection of industrial property objects and compliance with the EU requirements in 2006.
In 2006 the interests of Lithuania will be represented in WIPO, TRIPS council of the World Trade Organization, Administrative council of EPO, EU institutions.
The State Patent Bureau will extend its cooperation with the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), European Patent Organization (EPO), EU Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market and patent offices of other countries.
Rimvydas NAUJOKAS