Fundamental provisions

1. Status and function of the Industrial Property Office

• In accordance with the Act No. 14/1993 Coll., on measures for industrial property protection, the Office (hereinafter “Office”) administrates and makes accessible to the public central collection of patent literature (hereinafter “patent literature”) by means of public reading room (hereinafter “reading room”). The term “patent literature” means (for the needs of loan regulations) the complete descriptions or fragments of granted national and foreign patents, published patent applications, registered utility models and industrial designs, national and foreign patent and trademark bulletins, annual lists of granted patents, published classification manuals, periodicals from the field of industrial property and other professional sources of industrial property information which are available in the Office.
• Loan regulations apply to all users of reading room. If the user does not fulfil the obligations stipulated by the loan regulations, staff of the reading room is competent to refuse the providing of demanded service.

2. Services provided by the reading room

The following services are available:

• Information services
  Providing of information concerning patent literature, location and accessibility of documents, patent information mediums, classification system of particular types of industrial property information sources, searches, accessibility of legal provisions in the field of industrial property protection and providing all kinds of information concerning function and facilities of the reading room.
• Lending services
  Lending services are only offered for in-house purposes. They are free of charge and the number of lent documents is limited by scope of archive.
• Photocopy service
  It is possible to make copies of the documents from library collections or private documents. If the demand for making copies does not overrun the reading room capacity, copies are made for users while one waits. Copies are only made in A4 format on a 1:1 ratio. Copies can be paid by cash directly in the reading room or within a continuous order by quarterly invoice. Copies of documents stored on CD-ROM are made in the same way. Copies from microfiches and microfilms are provided while one waits or within an arranged time limit.
• Search services
  Search services are provided on the basis of written order or, in case of easier demand, while one waits on settlements with the staff of the reading room. The fees for searches are to be paid either directly in cash or by invoice or in scope of current order. The fees follow the current service offer of the Office.

3. Lending process

Working hours:

Day	Hours
Monday	8.00 - 17.00
Tuesday	8.00 - 15.00
Wednesday	8.00 - 17.00
Thursday	8.00 - 15.00
Friday	8.00 - 14.00

The last loan can be required 30 minutes before the end of working hours.

• The user is obliged to put his name to the visitors’ book at the entrance of the Office, collect the lending card and put his clothes and bags to the cloakroom. This is not necessary for the persons who come to pay for trademark searches carried out at the information desk.
• Only aids for studying (pens, dictionaries etc.) can be taken to the reading room.
• Staff of the reading room is obliged to find and lend required documents within the time adequate to the technical facilities. Documents stored in a detached archive have to be ordered in the reading room. They are available generally in one-week time period at the earliest.
• The user is obliged to pass the lending card to the staff and return the lent documents after finishing the study.

4. Users

User of reading room can be anyone who is interested in patent literature and services of reading room. Persons under twelve years of age may use reading room only when accompanied by adult.

Users of reading room may use all provided services, especially:

• use the free accessed publications, classification manuals, dictionaries and other reference literature;
• ask for other publications which are not free accessible on the shelves in the reading room (keyword indexes, handbooks, legal provisions in the field of the industrial property protection, annual lists, dictionaries...);
• search database of trademarks; it is necessary to have the privileges issued by the Office; the computers may be used only during the working hours of the reading room; the users may search the database of trademarks for maximum 45 minutes when the demand for search database is increased; duration of session may be limited by staff of the reading room;
• search database of patent information on CD-ROM;
• obtain information about legal status of the Czech documents;
• borrow the registry cards with industrial designs; they may be viewed only with assistance of staff of the reading room, eventually the copies can be made; the classified collections of industrial designs should be lent continuously, i.e. when a document of certain class is returned the second one may be provided to user;
• use the facilities for reading microfiche and microfilm;
• demand for making copies of documents; only limited number of copies is made while one waits; the copies can also be ordered per phone;
• order the files for viewing (per phone);
• arrange a continuous order for making copies and performing searches; the service is provided continuously without direct payment and whole amount is paid by invoice quarterly;
• remarks and suggestions can be discussed directly with the staff of reading room or the head of division can be informed.

5. User obligations

Users are expected:

• to get acquainted with loan regulations, follow the instructions and observe the directions of the staff of reading room; comply with control measures which are necessary for protection of documents and for keeping order;
• to fill the loan card and exactly and completely specify the required documents; pass the filled loan card to the staff of reading room;
• to use the reading room only as long as it is necessary;
• to be responsible for lent documents during the time of lending, keep the sorting system of files according to the names of states, international patent classification, eventually the document numbers; return the lent documents at the same place and put the document files on the cart;
• not to change any information on documents; the staff of reading room has to be informed about any eventual doubts or defects; users are obliged to work with documents carefully, protect them against damage; it is forbidden to write any notes into the documents and pull out the pages;
• to keep the page which should be copied inside the file, just pull it out a little bit or attach the card with required page numbers and give it to the staff of reading room;
• to follow the instructions of the staff when they work with the CD-ROMs or trademark database; the user must not change the computers configuration;
• to inform the staff about the number of pages printed from the trademark database and pay the charge;
• to inform the staff in case of any damages of patent literature, computers or other facilities of reading room and pay a compensation for damages;
• to abide by fire safety rules, to observe silence and keep the reading room tidy; smoking, eating, drinking and using of phones is not permitted in the reading room;
• not to take photos of documents;
• not to use a portable phone, personal computers which work in connected network and not to connect anything to the electric network in the reading room; the departure from the rule may constitute only a head of the reading room or his/her assistant;
• not to use internal phone;
• not to enter the archive.

6. Office’s staff obligations

• The staff of the Office is obliged to register all its loans on the loan cards in the reading room.
• The Office’s staff is obliged to follow instructions of the staff of the reading room and register the loans in the notebook located in reading room.
• The carrying of documents out of reading room – without permission of the staff of reading room - is forbidden.
• Any changes of computers configuration - without knowing of the staff of reading room - are forbidden.

Final provisions

• The departure from the rule may constitute a head of the reading room.
• Loan regulations take effect on June 1st, 1998.