Annual Report 2017 German Patent and Trade Mark Office Annual Report 2017Annual Visit Us in Munich, Jena and Berlin
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Annual Report 2017 German Patent and Trade Mark Office Annual 2017 Report Visit us in Munich, Jena and Berlin: Munich German Patent and Trade Mark Office (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt) Zweibrückenstraße 12 80331 München, Germany Opening hours of the enquiry unit Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Friday 8:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Berlin German Patent and Trade Mark Office (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt) Information and Service Centre Gitschiner Straße 97 10969 Berlin, Germany Opening hours of the enquiry unit Monday through Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Jena German Patent and Trade Mark Office (Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt) Jena Sub-Office (Dienststelle Jena) Goethestraße 1 07743 Jena, Germany Opening hours of the enquiry unit Monday through Thursday 9:00 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Friday 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Do you have any questions? We will be pleased to help you! We will be pleased to answer your questions and provide information on the steps of an ap- plication for an industrial property right. You can visit us at our offices and also, of course, contact us by telephone, fax or e-mail. Further information and all necessary applica- tion forms are available at www.dpma.de. >> Central Customer Care and Services >> Database hotline search support Phone +49 89 2195-1000 Phone +49 89 2195-3435 E-mail [email protected] E-mail [email protected] >> Search >> Technical hotline for DPMAdirektPro Munich search room (electronic IP applications) Monday through Thursday 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Phone +49 89 2195-2500 Friday 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. E-mail [email protected] Phone +49 89 2195-3435 Berlin search room >> Press and Public Relations Monday through Wednesday 7:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Phone +49 89 2195-3222 Thursday 7:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. E-mail [email protected] Friday 7:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. Phone +49 30 25992-230 or -231 >> Data protection at the DPMA Phone +49 89 2195-3333 E-mail [email protected] >> Patent information centres A list of the addresses of the 20 patent information centres is available at www.piznet.de Contents Tasks and organisation . 2 Patents . .4 IN FOCUS: Selected fields of technology . 10 BRIEFLY EXPLAINED: Extended search report . 13 140 years of the patent office in Germany . .14 Utility models . 16 IN MEMORIAM: Professor Dr Eduard Reimer . 21 Trade Marks . 22 IN FOCUS: Reform of trade mark law – the certification mark . 28 BRIEFLY EXPLAINED: Three-dimensional marks. 30 Indications of geographical origin. 32 40 years of “Plagiarius” . 34 Designs . 36 At a glance . 41 Administration and Law INTERVIEWS: Interview with Dr Regina Hock . 44 International cooperation . 46 Supervision under the CMO Act . 50 Arbitration boards at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office . 52 Patent attorney training . 56 140 years ago. 57 News from IT services . 58 Customer care and information services . 62 INSIDE: Our local trade fair services for you . 64 National cooperation partners . 66 INTERVIEWS: Interview with Dr Jutta Köwitz . 68 Events in 2017 . 70 Our strategy, our projects . 74 INSIDE: Business process management at the DPMA . 78 Inventions by children . 80 Inventor and innovation awards . 82 A glance at 2018 . 86 Statistics . 88 The year 2017 was a jubilee year for our office, which all of us at the DPMA look back on with great pleasure. The founding of the Imperial Patent Office in 1877 brought about nothing less than Germany’s unity in the field of industrial property protection. From then on, uniform national patents, which for the first time were valid throughout the country, have secured the protection of technical inventions. This was a novelty in the history of our country, just like each of the many innovations for which these national IP rights have been granted since 1877. Last year, the 140th anniversary of the patent office in Germany offered an opportunity for us to look back on the history of our office and the developments in the patent system since 1877. The staff of the DPMA, who had dealt with this topic, discovered a lot of interesting facts and found quite a wealth of historical treasures. The joint productive efforts of all DPMA offices resulted in an exhibition in Munich, a guided history walk in Berlin and a series of articles with monthly contributions on the Internet as well as the jubilee publication “From imperial Germany to the digital age” produced by the office’s own printing shop. However, the anniversary was also an occasion for us to look ahead and think about the future course of our office with its many traditions, even develop it further in a goal-oriented way on the basis of our vision of DPMA2020. A strategic, visionary approach, if you like, which is not only supported by the office’s senior management and dictated top-down: Many divisions and work areas in the office are involved in the continuous development of DPMA2020 and we also regularly seek external expertise for the planning and implementation of sub-strategies. It is a dynamic process to which we would like to invite you, our customers, for example at specialist events such as the DPMAnutzerforum meeting. Please make use of this offer: Let us know your ideas about the further development of the DPMA and its services so that we can benefit from your visions. I am confident that this fruitful collaboration will also produce tangible benefits for you and your innovations! You may have noticed from the layout of our Annual Report that the further development of the DPMA is a matter of importance to us, which we as editors have also implemented and made visible in this publication. The 2017 Annual Report appears in a revised look; we have aired it with a fresh breeze and given it a modern concept. But don’t be worried: What has been important to you and to us is still included on the following pages – all information and statistics, for example on the development of IP applications and IP grants in the year under review. But the presentation is new, with many infographics. They have been designed by us to quickly provide you with concise and succinct information that is relevant to you. I hope you like the DPMA’s Annual Report, which is new in every respect, and find it a good and useful read! Yours sincerely, Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office 2 TASKS AND ORGANISATION Annual Report 2017 Tasks and organisation The German Patent and Trade Mark Office: For the protection of your innovations. Inventiveness and creativity need effective protection. And this protection is provided by intellectual property rights - patents, utility models, trade marks and registered designs. Our office, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA), operates within the portfolio of the Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Pro- tection and is the German centre of expertise for all four types of IP rights. Our tasks include patent examination and grant as well as the registration of trade marks, utility models and designs. As the largest national patent office in Directorate General 1 – Patents and Utility Models Europe and the fifth largest national » About 900 patent examiners organised in five clusters (Mechanical patent office in the world, our office Engineering, Mechanical Technology, Electrical Engineering, Chemistry stands for Germany’s future as a country and Physics) with 30 patent divisions in total: of inventors in a globalised economy. from A for “acoustics” to Z for “Zone melting” » Utility models and topographies With just under 2,700 staff in » Patent and utility model administration → Munich Directorate General 2 – Information (DPMA headquarters including » Information services for the public and internal information services: senior management, administration Customer Care and Services, database search, Internet editorial office, as well as patent, trade mark and library and classification systems utility model divisions), » Support of the 20 German patent information centres by the DPMA Information and Service Centre Berlin → Jena » Operation and further development of all information technologies of the (administrative units, the Design DPMA Division and another trade mark division), Directorate General 3 – Trade Marks and Designs » 13 teams in three divisions for trade mark examination → Berlin » Trade mark cancellation division (DPMA Information and Service Cen- » Design Division with Design Unit tre, until 31 October 2017 “Technical Information Centre”) and Directorate General 4 – Administration and Law » 19 specialist areas in four divisions → Hauzenberg » All administrative tasks, including personnel and facility management, (several teams in provision of infor- organisation as well as budget and legal affairs mation and in Customer Care and » International relations and cooperation projects of the DPMA, patent at- Services) torneys and other agents as well as supervision of collective management organisations under the Act on Collective Management Organisations the DPMA is a service provider for in- (Verwertungsgesellschaftengesetz) ventors, companies and universities. Annual Report 2017 TASKS AND ORGANISATION 3 Press and Public Relations Internal Communications, Key Support to Senior Management, Strategic Management Central Controlling, Cost/Performance Accounting, Quality Management President Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer Internal Audit, Corruption Prevention and Office Data Protection Arbitration Board under the Employee Inventions Act Arbitration Board under the Act on Collective Management Organisations (CMO Act) Vice-President Vice-President Günther Schmitz Christine Moosbauer DPMAinnovativ Planning Staff Directorate General 1 Directorate General 2 Directorate General 3 Directorate General 4 Patents and Utility Information Trade Marks and Administration and Law Models Hubert Rothe Designs Dr Regina Hock Günter Hubert Barbara Preißner DPMA Information and Jena Sub-Office Service Centre Berlin PATENTS Annual Report 2017 PATENTS 5 Quality and timely results by Günter Hubert Head of Directorate General 1 – Patents and Utility Models nnovations and inventions procedures not yet completed, because divisions within Directorate General jointly form an important it is no longer possible to manage the 1 to 30.