The German Patent Classification is a patent classification system that was used in several European countries.
A patent classification is a system for examiners of patent offices or other people to categorize (code) documents, such as published patent applications, according to the technical features of their content. Patent classifications make it feasible to search quickly for documents about earlier disclosures similar to or related to the invention for which a patent is applied for, and to track technological trends in patent applications.
The German Patent Office (German: Kaiserliches Patentamt) started developing a classification system for its patent documents in 1877. [1] It was greatly expanded during the following decades and was published in seven editions between 1906 and 1958, first as "Verzeichnis der deutschen Patentklassen" and later as "Gruppeneinteilung der Patentklassen". The abbreviation DPK, for Deutsche Patentklassifikation, is used in some databases.
German is a West Germanic language that is mainly spoken in Central Europe. It is the most widely spoken and official or co-official language in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, South Tyrol (Italy), the German-speaking Community of Belgium, and Liechtenstein. It is also one of the three official languages of Luxembourg and a co-official language in the Opole Voivodeship in Poland. The languages which are most similar to German are the other members of the West Germanic language branch: Afrikaans, Dutch, English, the Frisian languages, Low German/Low Saxon, Luxembourgish, and Yiddish. There are also strong similarities in vocabulary with Danish, Norwegian and Swedish, although those belong to the North Germanic group. German is the second most widely spoken Germanic language, after English.
The DPK was also used in Sweden, Norway, and other countries in Scandinavia and central and eastern Europe. In the 1970s, development and active use of the system publications was discontinued as most of these countries switched to the International Patent Classification (IPC). The classification is still used on old patent documents.
The International Patent Classification (IPC) is a hierarchical patent classification system used in over 100 countries to classify the content of patents in a uniform manner. It was created under the Strasbourg Agreement (1971), one of a number of treaties administered by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The classification is updated on a regular basis by a Committee of Experts, consisting of representatives of the Contracting States of that Agreement with observers from other organisations, such as the European Patent Office.
Between the editions, modifications were published in the form of "Änderungen" (German for "modifications") and "Ergänzungslieferungen" (German for "updates"). Between 1958 and 1975 around 40 percent of the original groups were replaced with groups from the emerging IPC. These new IPC-based parts mainly used the IPC group numbering, but kept the original DPK subclass symbols.
The European patent with unitary effect (EPUE), more commonly known as the unitary patent, is a new type of European patent in advanced stage of adoption which would be valid in participating member states of the European Union. Unitary effect can be registered for a European patent upon grant, replacing validation of the European patent in the individual countries concerned. The unitary effect means a single renewal fee, a single ownership, a single object of property, a single court and uniform protection—which means that revocation as well as infringement proceedings are to be decided for the unitary patent as a whole rather than for each country individually. Licensing is however to remain possible for part of the unitary territory.
The term Listserv has been used to refer to electronic mailing list software applications in general, but is more properly applied to a few early instances of such software, which allows a sender to send one email to the list, and then transparently sends it on to the addresses of the subscribers to the list.
Prior art, in most systems of patent law, is constituted by all information that has been made available to the public in any form before a given date that might be relevant to a patent's claims of originality. If an invention has been described in the prior art or would have been obvious over what has been described in the prior art, a patent on that invention is not valid.
In patent, industrial design rights and trademark laws, a priority right or right of priority is a time-limited right, triggered by the first filing of an application for a patent, an industrial design or a trademark respectively. The priority right allows the claimant to file a subsequent application in another country for the same invention, design, or trademark effective as of the date of filing the first application. When filing the subsequent application, the applicant must claim the priority of the first application in order to make use of the right of priority. The right of priority belongs to the applicant or his successor in title.
A patent office is a governmental or intergovernmental organization which controls the issue of patents. In other words, "patent offices are government bodies that may grant a patent or reject the patent application based on whether the application fulfils the requirements for patentability."
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of a functional item. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers and computer icons are examples of objects that are covered by design patents.
The German Patent and Trade Mark Office is the German national patent office, with headquarters in Munich, and offices in Berlin and Jena. In 2006 it employed 2556 people, of which about 700 were patent examiners.
Espacenet is a free online service for searching patents and patent applications. Espacenet was developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) together with the member states of the European Patent Organisation. Most member states have an Espacenet service in their national language, and access to the EPO's worldwide database, most of which is in English. In 2015, the Espacenet worldwide service claimed to have records on more than 90 million patent publications.
The United States Patent Classification is an official patent classification system in use and maintained by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). It was mostly replaced by the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) on January 1, 2013. Plant and design patents are still classified solely within USPC at the USPTO. As of December 2018, patents at the USPTO are still routed to their appropriate business and art units by their USPC, even though it is no longer assigned directly to the patents themselves.
The Traditional Knowledge Digital Library (TKDL) is an Indian digital knowledge repository of the traditional knowledge, especially about medicinal plants and formulations used in Indian systems of medicine. Set up in 2001, as a collaboration between the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and the MINISTRY OF AYUSH the objective of the library is to protect the ancient and traditional knowledge of the country from exploitation through biopiracy and unethical patents, by documenting it electronically and classifying it as per international patent classification systems. Apart from that, the non-patent database serves to foster modern research based on traditional knowledge, as it simplifies access to this vast knowledge of remedies or practices.
Google Patents is a search engine from Google that indexes patents and patent applications.
The European Classification (ECLA) is a former patent classification system maintained by the European Patent Office (EPO). The ECLA classification system contains 134 000 subdivisions. It is mainly an extension of the International Patent Classification system, but sometimes modifies its titles and rules. ECLA is used in connection with the indexing system ICO, which serves to identify additional information and aspects that are not covered by the ECLA schemes. ECLA has been replaced by the Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) as of 1 January 2013.
The Swedish Patent and Registration Office is a Swedish government agency based in Stockholm and Söderhamn in charge of patents, trademarks and industrial designs. The Office acts as Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) authority, i.e. International Searching Authority (ISA) and International Preliminary Examining Authority (IPEA). Susanne Ås Sivborg is the current Director General of the Office.
The MAtrixware REsearch Collection (MAREC) is a standardised patent data corpus available for research purposes. MAREC seeks to represent patent documents of several languages in order to answer specific research questions. It consists of 19 million patent documents in different languages, normalised to a highly specific XML schema.
LW5/7 is a standing para-Alpine and para-Nordic skiing classification for skiers with upper extremity issues in both limbs that may include double amputation of both arms and hands or dysmelia of the upper limbs. The class has three subclasses defined by the location of the disability on the upper extremities. International classification is done by IPC Alpine Skiing and IPC Nordic Skiing. On the national level, classification is handled by national sports federation such as Cross-Country Canada.
The Cooperative Patent Classification (CPC) is a patent classification system, which has been jointly developed by the European Patent Office (EPO) and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). The CPC is substantially based on the previous European classification system (ECLA), which itself was a more specific and detailed version of the International Patent Classification (IPC) system.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to patents:
Versasec AB was founded in 2007 in Stockholm, Sweden. The company produces and sells identity management software for computer security and has specialized in software connecting smart cards to computer systems.