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The patent is the most widely known protective right which is granted to you by the Patent Office after you have filed an official petition.
For this purpose, your invention must comply with the following material prerequisites which will be examined by the Patent Office. Your application must be:
- which is a novelty worldwide,
- based on inventive activity,
- and suitable for industrial use.
The subject-matter of the application is only then regarded as being a novelty if it has not been made accessible to the public, neither in oral nor in written form, before the date of filing. The appearance of an article or essay in a professional journal, the distribution of brochures or the presentation at a fair constitute the status of 'prior publication' if and when an invention is recognisable in the contents.
Even if the inventor or the person filing the petition was responsible for publication of this information, it is nevertheless an obstruction during the later course of patent application.
Therefore, the correct approach is: first, you file your application, then you publish it.
In Germany alone, over 100.000 patent applications are filed every year.
With the German patent you can act only against the unauthorised use of the protected subject-matter in Germany but not, however, against the manufacture or sale of the products in other countries. For this reason, export-orientated companies should file for foreign protective rights in good time in order to secure the markets beyond national boundaries.
This can be done in two ways. National patent applications can be filed with the patent offices in the foreign states. The applicant should be aware of the fact that each country has different legal statutes and formal regulations, and a different language is usually involved also. On the other hand, there is also the option of filing a European patent application in German language with the European Patent Office (EPA) in Munich. A European patent application can cover some or all of the contractual states. At present, these are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Portugal, Slovak Republic, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland.
With the 'Patent Co-Operation Treaty' (PCT) on international co-operation in the field of patents, it is possible to cover several (including non-European) countries with one single application for a patent grant. For such an international patent application, a central novelty investigation is carried out. Once the applicant has received the 'International Investigation Report' informing him on the prospects of a patent grant, he must then initiate the various national phases in the countries of his particular interest.
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