No Refund of DPMA Examination Fee

In the case X ZB 11/13, the applicant had requested the refund of the examination fee for an application which had been deemed to be withdrawn when the examination hand not been started.

The BGH discusses various possible claims for refund of the examination fees including the constitution and comes to the conclusion that no statutory basis for the refund exists. In contrast to the examination fees of EPO, the examination fees are considered to be fees for formally initiating the examination procedure and not linked to any actual service being carried out.

New Name and New Invalidity Procedure for Registered Designs



The German IP right formerly known as Geschmacksmuster is a fairly powerful tool but has hitherto lingered in a niche existence. One of the reasons might have been that its name was difficult to pronounce for foreign applicants and even for the German public not very telling. According to the press release:

From 1 January 2014, designs - previously named "Geschmacksmuster" in German - will be called "eingetragenes Design" - meaning "registered design" - in Germany. The Act Modernising Designs Law and Revising Provisions for Notifications on Exhibition Protection (Gesetz zur Modernisierung des Geschmacksmusterrechts sowie zur Änderung der Regelungen über die Bekanntmachungen zum Ausstellungsschutz) of 10 October 2013 (Federal Law Gazette I 2013, no. 62, p. 3799) has also implemented other changes facilitating procedures for designs.

"With the renaming, we accommodate language developments," says Cornelia Rudloff-Schäffer, President of the DPMA. "The IP right's subject matter will become easier to understand, referring to both form and appearance of a product."

Invalidity proceedings for registered designs will also be introduced. The designs unit in Jena can declare a registration invalid if a respective application has been submitted. It can be based on absolute or relative grounds for invalidity. In civil proceedings, invalidity of a registered design can only be achieved by putting forward a counterclaim before the designs courts of the Länder from 1 January 2014.

Online File Inspection

As of January 7, 2014, the German Patent Office has opened its data base for online file inspection. Via the DPMARegister website, users may look into the public parts of the files of recently granted patents and of laid-open patent applications, wherein the usual restrictions pertaining to confidential and sensitive information apply.

The documents available for online inspection comprise the parts of files of:

• all patent and utility model applications for which a request for file inspection was submitted on or after 21 January 2013,
• all granted patents and registered utility models published since 21 January 2013 and
• all patent applications filed at the DPMA on or after 21 January 2013 that have already been published.

Apparently, the DPMA staff is still in the process of scanning the files and not every file is actually accessible. The author of this note confirms that the electronic access is provided within a few days when requesting it by clicking on the corresponding link on the bottom of the page with the bibliographic data. A possibility to be notified once the electronic file is available would be very convenient.

Further details are available in Notice No. 12/13 of the President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office of 28 November 2013 and in the Help pages provided by the DPMA.

Filing in English Will Become More Attractive for German Applicants

The Rosetta Stone

The German Federal Government Cabinet has agreed to a proposal of the Minister of Justice Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger to reform the German patent law.

The maybe most important point from a practiacal point of view is he prolongation of the delay for filing German translations of applications originally filed in English of French language from 3 months to 12 months from the filing date but not later than 15 months from the priority date. The examiner may invite the applicant to file the translation earlier in exceptional cases of particular complexity.

In addition, applications for which the translation is not timely filed are no longer deemed to be not filed but deemed to be withdrawn. The consequence is that the priority may still be claimed.

According to the explanatory remarks of the proposal (page 27, 1st paragraph), the DPMA will carry out the search and issue the search opinion for applications filed in English or French even if the translations are not yet provided.

Applicants may file their first applications in English language and will obtain a preliminary opinion prior to the expiry of the due date for filing the translation into German and decide on the basis of this opinion on his further strategy. The (slightly increased) search fees of EUR 300 are a very competitive price for a reasoned opinion and if the applicant decides to file an EP application to be validated in Germany later on, the original German application may be dropped and no translation of the full specification into German will ever be necessary.






For German applicants, this will strongly increase the attractivity of first filings in english language, in particuar if they follow an "all or nothing" strategy where the application is either dropped or prosecuted in multiple countries and where the probability of prosecuting the application in Germany only is low.

The proposal has yet to be ratified by the Bundestag and Bundesrat.