Aug 04, 2023 (Newsletter Issue 7/23)Industrial Property Act AmendedAmendments to the Slovenian Industrial Property Act entered into force on July 27, 2023, aiming to harmonize national legislation with the EU and international law, simplify procedures and make them more efficient and affordable.
Procedures for revocation and declaration of invalidity will be initiated before the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO). They were previously held before the District Court in Ljubljana. The rules for administrative procedure in accordance with the Industrial Property Act and the General Administrative Procedure Act apply. The official fee for revocation or declaration of invalidity is EUR 500. Evidence in a foreign language must be translated into Slovenian.
Actions against the SIPO’s decisions may be filed before the Administrative Court of Slovenia. The court fee for an action before the Administrative Court is EUR 148. Pending revocation and declaration of invalidity procedures initiated before the amendments entered into force will be resolved in accordance with the previous law.
The District Court remains competent for deciding on trademark revocation or invalidation in case of a counterclaim in an infringement action. In such cases the Court must inform the SIPO that such a procedure was initiated before the Court.
A representative before the courts may be an attorney at law or a person that has passed the state bar examination, whereas the SIPO representatives do not need to be attorneys at law but patent or trademark attorneys who are registered and on the SIPO’s list of IP attorneys.
The option to require evidence of use in an opposition procedure based on an earlier right vulnerable to non-use was only introduced in Slovenia with the amendments of the Industrial Property Act in 2020.
With respect to proving the reputation of EU trademarks, Article 44 (1) (c) now expressly stipulates that for EU trademarks, reputation in the EU should be proven (not only in Slovenia).
It is no longer expressly required that Powers of Attorney (POAs) are given to representatives in written form, which could be interpreted that scanned copies of POAs are acceptable and originals no longer required. In cases where there is more than one representative for a right, if not indicated otherwise, the SIPO will deliver the documents to the most recently registered representative.
Furthermore, a uniform attorney’s tariff was introduced, which should be accepted by the Association of Slovenian Intellectual Property Attorneys (ASIPA) within one year from the amendments’ entry into force.
For more information click here.Source: www.petosevic.com Nov 19, 2020 (Newsletter Issue 19/20)
IP Office New Online Services
As of November 2, 2020, the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO), with the support of the EUIPO’s European cooperation projects, improved the e-filing service it provides to its users following the implementation of Directive (EU) 2015/2436.
The front office platform via the SIPO website now allows users to file applications electronically for the new types of trademarks (position, pattern, motion, multimedia, hologram). Slight modifications, in accordance with Directive (EU) 2015/2436, have been implemented for colour and sound marks.
Source: www.euipo.europa.eu
Nov 19, 2020 (Newsletter Issue 19/20)
Trademark and Design Dossiers Digitized
On October 30, 2020, the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) completed the digitisation of its paper dossiers relating to trademarks and designs under the ECP5 project: Capture and Store Historical Files (CSHF).
The CSHF project, carried out within the framework of European Cooperation Projects, aims at digitising paper dossiers across EU national Intellectual Property Offices to enable easy and rapid access to documentation and data related to trademark and design dossiers.
Source: www.euipo.europa.eu
Jun 25, 2020 (Newsletter Issue 10/20)
Implementation of IP User Repository Completed
The Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) is the first pilot office to complete the implementation of the European Cooperation Project ‘ECP3 IP User Repository (IPUR)’.
IPUR is a support tool developed in the framework of the EUIPO’s European Cooperation activities. It aims to help IP offices avoid duplication of records of personal data (applicants and representatives).
The tool uses artificial intelligence to identify potential personal records that might belong to the same entity, given some preliminary rules defined by the office. Based on these rules, the tool proposes these matches as clusters for the office to review. The main outcome is a clean database of users without duplicates or incomplete personal data.
From the initial 144,000 records analysed by the Slovenian office, 136,000 duplicates were identified which resulted in 21,000 clusters and 7,182 unique records.
Source: www.euipo.europa.eu
Apr 02, 2020 (Newsletter Issue 5/20)Intellectual Property Act AmendedOn March 5, 2020, the Slovenian Parliament adopted amendments to the Industrial Property Act, transposing into the national legislation Directive (EU) 2015/2436 of the EU Parliament and of the Council of 16 December 2015 to approximate the laws of the Member States relating to trademarks. The amendments to the Slovenian IP Act came into force on March 29, 2020.
Important changes are the following:
- No graphical representation requirement for trademarks anymore
- New types of non-traditional trademarks such as holograms, movement marks and multimedia can be registered
- Re-definition of absolute grounds for refusal based on earlier Slovenian or EU-wide geographical indications, protected designations of origin, and traditional names for wines
- New absolute grounds for refusal for plant varieties and guaranteed traditional specialties
- Clearer definition of an earlier trademark that may be a basis for an opposition with respect to relative grounds for refusal
- Non-use defence now also to oppositions, non-use revocations, and infringement proceedings
- Non-exclusive licensees can now also seek protection against trademark infringements
- Exclusive licensee can now seek protection against infringement without trademark holder’s consent under certain conditions
- The licensee has now the right to join infringement proceedings as an interested party
The amendments apply to all pending procedures and trademarks as of March 29, 2020, with the exception of procedures where a legal remedy or a court proceeding were initiated before this date.
For further information, please check the article of Mr. Andrej Bukovnik from Bukovnik & Kulbaba IP Guardians hereSource: www.bk-ip.eu Jun 20, 2019 (Newsletter Issue 8/19)
Trade Secrets Act Adopted
On April 20, 2019, the Trade Secrets Act entered into force in Slovenia, transposing the Directive (EU) 2016/943 on the protection of undisclosed know-how and business information (trade secrets) into Slovenian legislation.
Before the Act entered into force, trade secrets were regulated by the Companies Act and the Employment Relationships Act. Their subject matter was defined in broader terms, leaving room for various court interpretations.
Under the new act, a trade secret is defined as undisclosed expert knowledge, experience or business information that is not generally known or easily accessible, that has a certain market value and for which sufficient measures have been taken to keep it a secret.
Apart from defining trade secrets, the Act lays down the rules for their lawful and unlawful acquisition, use and disclosure, and the rules for maintaining their confidentiality in and after court proceedings. The Act also provides trade secret holders with a number of measures to be used in the event of trade secret misappropriation, including compensatory damages.
Source: www.petosevic.com
Mar 21, 2019 (Newsletter Issue 4/19)
Drafts Amendments to Industrial Property Act
The Slovenian Ministry of Economic Development and Technology, in cooperation with the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office, prepared a draft Act amending the Industrial Property Act in order to transpose the provisions of the Directive (EU) 2015/2436 into national legislation.
The amendments relate to trademarks only and the most important include the following:
- The scope of absolute grounds for refusal has been expanded;
- Relative grounds have been supplemented, amended or defined in a more precise and clear manner;
- Non-use defense has been introduced in opposition proceedings and annulment and infringement actions.
The draft was available for public consultation from January 21 to February 20, 2019. The Slovenian Association of Representatives for Intellectual Property provided the Ministry with comments and proposed amendments to the text. Once the Ministry prepares the final version of the proposed draft, it will enter the parliamentary procedure.
Source: www.petosevic.com
May 17, 2017 (Newsletter Issue 9/17)
Plain Tobacco Packaging from 2020
On February 15, 2017, the Slovenian Parliament unanimously adopted the new Act on the Restriction on the Use of Tobacco and Related Products (“Tobacco Act”) that came into force on March 11, 2017.
With the new Tobacco Act, Slovenia has implemented the Directive 2014/40/EU (“Tobacco Products Directive”) into its legislation. Although the plain packaging provisions of the Tobacco Products Directive are not mandatory, Slovenia opted to introduce them and joined the group of countries with restrictive tobacco legislation. Plain packaging will become obligatory in Slovenia as of January 1, 2020.
Source: www.petosevic.com
Mar 18, 2015 (Newsletter Issue 4/15)More E-Services IntroducedAs of February 16, 2015, the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) allows electronic filing of seven more applications regarding national trademarks and designs through an online application, which was developed in close cooperation with OHIM - Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs).
They are:
- Transfer of rights (trademarks and designs)
- Change of owner's data (trademarks and designs)
- Renewal of trademarks and designs
- Opposition against registration of a trademark
Previously on November 5, 2014, electronic filing of applications for the registration of national trademarks and designs through an online application was launched.
SIPO electronic filing system is currently available only in Slovenian language and is accessible at http://www.uil-sipo.si/uil/dejavnosti/e-vloge/
Source: www.uil-sipo.si Nov 25, 2014 (Newsletter Issue 18/14)E-Filing Now ImplementedThe Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) allows as of 5 November 2014 electronic filing of applications for the registration of national trademarks and designs through an online application, which was developed in close cooperation with OHIM - Office for Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trade Marks and Designs).
SIPO electronic filing system is currently available only in Slovenian language and is accessible at http://www.uil-sipo.si/uil/dejavnosti/e-vloge/.
Source: www.uil-sipo.si Jan 21, 2014 (Newsletter Issue 1/14)
Industrial Property Act Amended
On 27 November 2013 Slovenia adopted an amendment to the second paragraph of Article 67 of the Industrial Property Act regulating time frames for filing the request for continuation of proceedings after missing a deadline. The amendment came into force on 21 December 2013.
In accordance with the first paragraph of Article 67, the applicant, who has failed to comply with a time limit set out for the fulfillment of the obligations required in the proceedings for the acquisition of a right, may request that the non-observed time limit be deemed to have been complied with, that legal consequences of such non-observance be abolished, and that the Slovenian IPO continues the proceedings for the acquisition of the right. This legal remedy is different from restitutio in integrum as it can only be applied in the IP right application stage of the proceedings and not later on. At the same time, it is not limited only to cases where the applicant/holder has a justified and provable reason for missing a deadline, like in the case of restitutio in integrum. No reason for missing a deadline needs to be proven or even given.
The former version of the second paragraph of Article 67 stipulated that the request for continuation of proceedings had to be filed within two months after the applicant learned of the non-observance of the deadline or its legal consequences, while not setting any other deadline to file the request. In theory, this allowed the applicant to file a request for continuation of proceedings even years after missing the deadline.
In the interest of legal certainty, the amended law now sets the time limits to file the request for continuation of proceedings within two months after the cause for missing the deadline ceased to exist or within two months after the applicant learned that he missed the deadline. However, in no case can this request be filed later than six months after missing the original deadline.
Source: www.petosevic.com
Dec 17, 2013 (Newsletter Issue 18/13)
SIPO Joined Designview
On October 30, the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) joined Designview, online database and search tool created to provide free access to data on designs registered in all participating national offices.
By adding nearly 4,000 Slovenian designs, Slovenia has joined Portugal, Benelux, Estonia, Spain, Greece, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Latvia and OHIM in the Designview community.
Source: PETOŠEVIĆ
Jan 27, 2010 (Newsletter Issue 6/10)IP Bulletin Issued Monthly NowAs of January 2010, the Slovenian Industrial Porperty Bulletin will be issued monthly (formerly bi-monthly).
It will be available free of charge in an electronic format at the Slovenian IPO's website on the last workday of the current month.
The 2010 publication dates are: January 29th, February 26th, March 31st, April 30th, May 31st, June 30th, July 30th, August 31st, September 30th, October 29th, November 30th and December 31st.Source: Slovenian IP Office Legal basis is the Industrial Property Act; its last amendment came into force on March 29, 2020.
Slovenia is a member of the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol. Since May 1st, 2004, Slovenia has been a member of the European Union.
Trademark protection is, except for some minor exceptions, obtained by registration.
Nice classification, 11th edition
Registrable as a trademark are all signs in particular words, including personal names, or designs, letters, numerals, colours, the shape of goods or of the packaging of goods, or sounds, provided that such signs are capable of:
a) distinguishing the goods or services of one undertaking from those of other undertakings; and
b) being represented on the register in a manner which enables the competent authorities and the public to determine the clear and precise subject matter of the protection afforded to its proprietor.
Protectable as non-traditional Trademarks are for example: 3-D, colours, holograms, position,movement marks, multimedia.
The following trademark types are registrable: trademarks (covering goods and/or services) and collective trademarks.
The application is filed with the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office.
Multiple-class applications are possible.
Foreign applicants need a local agent.
A non-legalised power of attorney is sufficient.
Foreign applicants do not need a domestic registration.
The application process includes a formal examination and an examination of absolute grounds for refusal (e.g. distinctiveness, descriptiveness, deceptiveness), but no search for prior trademarks.
The processing time from first filing to registration is approx. 5 to 12 months. Before registration, the trademark application is published in a monthly “Bilten za industrijsko lastnino”.
National:The opposition period is 3 months from publication of the trademark application in the Official Gazette.
Details regarding the
Opposition Period against designation of IR Mark are available in our publication on this topic
here
A trademark registration is valid for 10 years from date of application.
The registration is renewable for periods of 10 years.
Practical details on grace periods for trademark renewals are available in our publication
herePractical details on trademark use requirements are available in our publication
hereThe official fee is EUR 100.00 for up to three classes and EUR 20.00 for each additional class.
Registration fees amount to EUR 150.00 for up to three classes and EUR 50.00 for each additional class.
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Practical details on trademark licensing are available in our publication
hereOnline you can see a limited part of information about this country.
More in-depth details are available for the following aspects:
General Trademark Regulations
Trademark Use Requirements
Grace Period for Trademark Renewal
Trademark Licensing
If you like to purchase all available information for this country, click the order button.
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Sep 03, 2024
Mark-Inventa Co., Ltd., Ljubljana, Slovenia
