SLOVENIA: An Introduction to Intellectual Property

Background 

Slovenia being a small country has its benefits. Intellectual property (IP) experts (such as this firm) are able to work closely with the Intellectual Property Office, which has been extremely active in the past few years, aiming to increase awareness in the area of IP rights and their enforcement. Experts also attend a yearly overview of court case law, presented by esteemed judges, who gladly listen to experts’ feedback to achieve the common goal of improving IP rights awareness.

One recent improvement (possibly taken for granted by some) is that publicly available case law now includes names and/or figurative representations of trade marks (which were previously omitted for anonymisation purposes). This allows for better and easier IP rights protection and enforcement. That said, we believe there is still room for improvement in the field of IP rights awareness and enforcement – and some of the reasons and opportunities are discussed herein.

IP Litigation and Awareness 

According to recent research conducted by the Slovenian Institute for Economic Research (the “Institute”) on the topic of IP, Slovenia has a relatively well-functioning IP management support system. There are, however, relatively few cases of IP litigation, resulting in limited case law. This is a result of various factors (besides the relatively small size of the Slovenian market), the most common including lack of awareness of the importance of IP rights and the lack of resources of IP rights-holders and/or infringers, often resulting in out-of-court settlements or coexistence agreements.

Thus, when the few cases do reach court, the judges (and parties) often also rely on foreign case law (notably German and UK case law), especially for patent infringement disputes. The Institute also detected a relatively weak awareness of the importance of IP in the economy and public sectors, and consequently a lack of awareness and limited respect of IP rights among the general public (an EUIPO survey conducted in 2023 showed that awareness of IP in Slovenia is lower than the EU average).

As an important background element, it should be noted that Slovenia is not typically the final destination of counterfeit goods, and that most goods seized by customs authorities in Slovenia are in transit to other EU or third countries. There is also an opinion that the increased use of artificial intelligence (AI) and the growth of online sales (compared to in-store sales) in recent years will significantly influence IP rights and their management, and that raising awareness of IP rights-holders will be crucial in preventing infringements and protecting such important assets of companies.

The Slovenian economy consists of a relatively high number of SMEs; however, only a small proportion of these protect and manage IP rights. Owing to resource constraints, SMEs have difficulties in enforcing IP rights and often treat them as an unnecessary burden or as something to invest in at a later stage (ie, when the company will be more successful and thus have more resources).

This is particularly the case for the cultural and creative sector. Particularly in the area of trade marks, there is a perception that proprietors are not well informed about the need to keep themselves abreast of new trade mark applications (by means of trade mark watching/monitoring) and to take timely action against them if they consider that they infringe their rights. We have also noticed an increase of the monitoring of trade mark applications by foreign entities (usually EU trade mark proprietors) as well as of Slovenian trade mark applications. These, again, resulted in limitations of the list of goods and services and/or in application withdrawals. This is, presumably, also the consequence of the lack of resources allocated to IP rights protection and enforcement.

Outlook 

In 2024 the IP Scan Enforcement system was introduced by the EUIPO (Slovenia is one of the eight countries in which this system is available at the time of writing (April 2024)), helping SMEs cover a part of the advisory costs where a conflict with another party already exists or where there is a high risk of conflict. A number of Slovenian IP specialists joined the system, with the aim of helping SMEs protect their IP rights. We believe this could be an important factor in improving IP enforcement in Slovenia.

In 2022 the Slovenian government recognised neglect in acknowledgement of the importance of IP, and established an inter-ministerial working group with a plan to prepare a national IP strategy (to be adopted in 2024). The national strategy will address those topics identified in the analysis as needing to be addressed, with the aim of raising awareness regarding the importance of IP as well as implementing measures needed to achieve this goal.

In this regard, the Institute’s study contains a number of suggestions for improving the situation, including (among others):

• strengthening judicial protection in the field of IP, by introducing alternative dispute resolution in this area;

• supplementing curricula and teaching materials for primary and secondary schools with content on IP; and

• education and training in universities and public research organisations on the management of intellectual assets.

Furthermore, in 2023 the Slovenian Industrial Property Act underwent significant amendments, especially in the following fields:

• patents (mainly to align the scope of protection offered by a patent with unitary effect with the provisions of the Agreement on the Unified Patent Court); and

• trade marks (with the most important amendment being that the competence for dealing with nullity and non-use cancellation proceedings was transferred from the court to the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office). 

The District Court of Ljubljana still remains the only competent first-instance court for IP infringement matters, though this is expected to relieve the court of the burden of litigation and to bring proceedings to a swifter conclusion.

There have also been important developments in the field of copyright, notably in the area of collective rights management. The legislation underwent significant changes in 2022, and the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office has recently been quite active in this field, issuing a number of new licences to various collective management societies, such as:

• collective management of the right to make available to the public works of authorship in the field of music; and

• collective management of the right of performers and film producers to adequate compensation.

Lastly, the increase of online and virtual goods and services has led the EUIPO to update their guidelines (in force since 31 March 2024), which will also influence both the protection and the enforcement of IP rights in the future.