Official Gazettes
Pursuant to Regulation No 26 of 12 August 2014 of the Minister of Justice, the official gazettes of the Patent Office are published only online since 1 December 2014. The Estonian Trade Mark Gazette and the Estonian Industrial Design Gazette are published on the first working day of each month and the Estonian Patent Gazette and the Estonian Utility Model Gazette are published on the 15th day (or on the following working day) of each month.
In its official gazettes the Patent Office publishes the decisions on the registration of industrial property objects (trade marks, inventions, industrial designs, layout designs of integrated circuits, geographical indications) and amendments to corresponding registers (the register of trade marks and service marks, the register of utility models, the patent register, the register of industrial designs, the register of layout designs of integrated circuits, the state register of geographical indications and the register of European patents valid in Estonia), and all legal acts on industrial property protection, including the original texts and translations of acts and international agreements.
The Estonian Patent Office publishes the following official gazettes:
The Estonian Trade Mark Gazette – published since September 1993;
The Estonian Utility Model Gazette – published since October 1994;
The Estonian Patent Gazette – published since December 1995;
The Estonian Industrial Design Gazette – published since August 1998.
Publications
The Patent Office continued with the policies that most of the materials will be published electronically and will be accessible and downloadable on our web page.
“Guidelines on Processing Patent Applications and Patents” was publised. The primary purpose of these guidelines is to ensure that the examiners process all patent and utility model applications in a harmonised manner, and to communicate these principles to the public too. Secondly, the guidelines contribute to the correct application of the provisions of patent laws, regulations and international agreements, while taking into account the independence of the Patent Office and the examiners in decision-making.
Our cooperation with the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO, former OHIM) continued: Newsletters No 1–4 of the European Trade Marks and Industrial Designs 2020 were published and existing methodical publications were updated.
Trade Mark Quiz
In order for anyone to determine what their trade mark knowledge is, we compiled a trade mark quiz in which people were able to participate interactively on our web site. Trade mark examiners who advise entrepreneurs on a daily basis helped compose the questionnaire. The quiz consisted of 13 choice questions, with a maximum of 17 points, and surprise prizes were drawn between the participants. As the quiz was very popular, it certainly helped to raise public awareness on the matter that when a new product or service is placed on the market, the company will not get through without a good trade mark – and that any mark that is intended to be put into service must also be protected in the right time for the sake of a successful business, and also what knowledge a person should have in order to do that.
Web page of the Estonian Patent Office and social media
The web page provides information in both Estonian and English about the registration of patents, utility models, industrial designs, trade marks and geographical indications. Classifications, legal acts and their translations, other legislation and materials concerning industrial property protection, relevant links, current news, FAQ and links to industrial property protection public databases and online portals of the Estonian Patent Office, EPO, WIPO and EUIPO.
The Patent Office can be found in social media channels such as FB, Twitter, blog and YouTube.
Patent Office Website Satisfaction Study
In 2020, the digital agency HAVAS conducted a large-scale satisfaction survey on the Patent Office web site. The study consisted of a quantitative and qualitative phase and analysis. The quantitative phase was essentially a web survey of web site visitors, where respective banners from the web site and icons from social media directed visitors to the Estonian and English language polls. The aim of the quantitative study was to find out the target groups and how much one or the other evaluation is represented in the target group. It turned out that there are three more or less equally represented audience groups among the visitors to the website: entrepreneurs, students, lawyers, and overall satisfaction with the website of the Patent Office was good. In the second, qualitative phase, the goal was to use in-depth interviews to explain the different user groups' paths in finding the desired information on the web page and identifying potential bottlenecks. Five in-depth interviews were conducted, two with small businesses: one of them had more experience in using the Patent Office website, the other had only used it once. An analysis followed, including Google Analytics statistics.
23% of visitors were constant, i.e. they visited the page at least once a week; 20% visited the page repeatedly (less than once a week), while the rest visited the page less than three times a year. Most visits lead up to a database query. Emphasis was placed on the need to make more visible direct links to databases and e-services on the home page. While most of the participants used the Patent Office website on a desktop computer, the need to develop the page into a mobile-friendly one was also revealed.
Web page user statistics 2020
- 56,965 visitors
- 122,735 visits
- 388,951 page views
On the average, there were 10,228 visits a month (9,906 in 2019). There were most visits on 12 October – 447. During one visit, approximately 3.2 pages were viewed (3.2 in 2019). An average visit lasted 3.52 minutes (4.04 in 2018). The proportion of visitors who left the page without clicking anywhere (bounce rate) was 33.78%. This number has not changed much since to 2019 (33.35%).
The majority of visits were from Estonia (69%), followed by USA, Finland, Germany, India, Russia, United Kingdom, China, Ukraine, Latvia etc. Altogether, visitors from 148 countries viewed the web site.
There were 11,719 repeated visits and 55,750 unique visits.
The most popular pages were:
- Home page (74,577 views)
- Trade marks databases (54,546)
- What is a trade mark? (23,780)
- Inventions databases (12,547)
- What is an invention? (5,835)
- Classification of goods and services (5,590)
- Contact (5,279)
- FAQ (5,015)
The most popular pages in English were:
- Home page
- Inventions databases
- Trade marks databases
- Trade marks databases of the Estonian Patent Office
- News
- What is a trade mark?
- What is an invention?
- Trade mark fees
- The Estonian Patent Office
The majority of the users (78%) viewed the website on a desktop or a laptop. 21% used a mobile phone and 1% a tablet computer. Compared to 2019 the number of visitors using a mobile phone or a tablet has decreased a little.
The website was found mainly (60%) by using a search engine, mainly Google. 35% wrote the web page address directly into the browser or chose it from a bookmark. 3% of the traffic came from referring websites (emtak.rik.ee, neti.ee, websitebottraffic.pw, link.stuudium.com, baidu.com, wipo.int). The share of social media has decreased a little since last year (2% vs. 2.8%). 2,830 visits came from Facebook (4,182 in 2019) and 1,417 from Twitter (960 in 2019). Documents were downloaded 19,158 times.
The most popular search words were klassid (classes), WIPO, litsents (licence), kaubamärk (trade mark), hinnakiri (fees).
User statistics of public databases of the Estonian Patent Office
Period: January 1, 2020 to December 31, 2020
| Database | Queries |
|---|---|
| Database of national patent applications and patents | 28,801 |
| Database of European patents validated in Estonia | 111,995 |
| Database of utility models | 5,069 |
| Supplementary protection certificates for medicinal products and plant protection products valid in Estonia (SPC-s) |
1,744 |
| Trade marks database | 666,635 |
| Industrial design database | 8,884 |
| Database of geographical indications | 1,624 |
Compared to last year, the number of database queries has increased, especially in the national patent database and European patent database.
Free consultations
The specialists of the Estonian Patent Office continued to provide free consultations for small businesses on the compilation of trade mark, industrial design and utility model applications as well as patent applications.
In view of the global emergency situation, office consultations were limited. However, the changed world made us pay more attention to telephone and e-mail consultations. Only nine persons were consulted in the office on industrial design - the total was 166 consultations, most of them were telephone consultations, some also video consultations on Facebook and Zoom. Two seminars on copyright and product design protection were also organised. One of the seminars was still traditionally held at the Patent Office on the spot, while the other was a virtual seminar via Zoom. In 2020, examiners from trade mark department gave advice mainly by phone and email. The total of consultations was 1,235, but only 33 persons were consulted on the spot. In addition to the regular presentations at the Patent Office (most of them on-line in 2020), the examiners also made presentations on the subject of trade mark to students of the Estonian Entrepreneurship University of Applied Sciences and to members of the Association of Estonian Accountants. Consultations related to inventions - patents and utility models - were given on the spot to 247 persons, for a total of 183 hours.
E-mail enquiries are mostly received via info@epa.ee and helpdesk@epa.ee. We also provide phone consultations and consultations at the office.
