The German Patent Classification is a

patent classification 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 ...

system that was used in several European countries.

History

The

German Patent Office The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (german: Deutsches Patent- und Markenamt; abbreviation: DPMA) is the German national patent office, with headquarters in Munich, and offices in Berlin and Jena. In 2006 it employed 2556 people, of which abo ...

(

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

: ''Kaiserliches Patentamt'') started developing a classification system for its patent documents in 1877.Introduction to the German Patent Classification (DPK)
formerly the Swedish Patent and Trademark Office (PRV), now at Internet Archive 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. 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 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 ...

(IPC). The classification is still used on old patent documents. 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.

References

{{reflist Patent classifications