The following data from the national data pool of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office are available for searching under DPMAregister:
Designs data have been captured electronically for all designs applied for since 1 July 1988. This means that you have access to the complete master data of all designs currently registered at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office.
Full details of all procedures are provided for designs registered after 1 January 1998. History data of previously registered designs may be incomplete.
The full sets of submitted reproductions are published only in respect of designs registered on or after 1 June 2004. In respect of designs registered before 1 June 2004, only individual reproductions have been published- but at least one reproduction per design. These were as a rule provided in black-and-white. For this reason, only individual reproductions are displayed, as a rule, in respect of designs registered before 1 June 2004.
Exceptions:
No reproductions are published if
- a request for deferment of publication of the representation was filed and is still effective;
- a design was designated as a variation of a basic design.
Descriptions are always optional. Until October 2008, it was possible to file a summarised description for each file number. The description was only published at the request of the applicant. When changing over from the publication of entire files to the publication of individual designs, the summarised description in the file was attributed to each individual design. Consequently, it may occur that individual sections of the description refer to a design that has not been the subject of a search. From November 2008, the descriptions can no longer be drafted in a summarised form for an entire file, but must relate to an individual design. If the applicant has filed a description, it will be published (without request).
The following data of the Designs Gazette (Geschmacksmusterblatt) are available:
After the Designs Gazette was restructured on 25 August 2004, publications in respect of type faces applied for on or after 1 July 1988 have been included in part 1. The new structure has not affected the volume of published data.
The individual Designs Gazette issues are available as PDF files on the "Designs Gazette" page from issue 01/2004.
The register data are updated daily.
The data of the Designs Gazette are published weekly, as a rule on Fridays.
For identifying all designs registrations effective in Germany, you also need to consider the Community designs of the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), the international designs managed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and the designs originating from the former GDR (called "industrielle Muster"). These are not included in the designs register. The registrations of these designs were not advertised in the designs gazette. Legal status changes are published in part 3 of the Geschmacksmusterblatt, but are not included in the DPMAregister database. You also need to consider type faces filed before 1 July 1988 at the German Patent Office. These type faces are not incorporated in the designs register. Changes of the legal status were published in the Bundesanzeiger (Federal gazette) until 10 August 2004. As from date of publication 25 August 2004, publications in relation to type faces filed before 1 July 1988 have been included in part 2 of the Geschmacksmusterblatt.
Our flyer "Online Searches for Designs" provides instructions and useful hints on how to carry out searches for designs.
Register data and procedural data of designs filed before 1 July 1988 by applicants having a seat in the Federal Republic of Germany were deposited with the competent local courts. They remained there even after legal changes came into effect on 1 July 1988. Designs applications filed by applicants not having a seat in the Federal Republic of Germany were deposited at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. Data were published in the Bundesanzeiger. The data were not captured in the databases of the DPMA. As the maximum term of protection of these designs was 15 years and the files were deleted five years after they had been closed, documents relating to these designs are no longer available.
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