Office for Inventions and Patents of the GDR

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The Office for Inventions and Patents of the GDR (AfEP) was an organ of the Council of Ministers of the GDR for the performance of state tasks in the fields of the innovator movement , inventors and patents , designs and symbols. The office was founded in September 1950 and was located in Berlin-Mitte at Mohrenstrasse 37b.

The AfEP was headed by a President on the principle of individual leadership with collective discussion of the basic questions. At the AfEP there were examination and rulings for patent matters, for trademarks and sample matters, arbitration boards for compensation disputes in the case of business patents and a legal department. The GDR replaced the German Reich utility model (DRGM) of May 5, 1936 in a new regulation through the Utility Model Act of January 18, 1956. As part of the amendment law to the patent law of July 31, 1963, the utility model protection was repealed.

On the day of German reunification , October 3, 1990, the German Patent Office took over the tasks of the AfEP with around 600 employees and around 13.5 million patent documents. The patent office gave up the office in Mohrenstrasse and only used the building in Gitschiner Strasse in the western part of the city in Berlin.

history

The GDR's office for inventions and patents already had a forerunner. The German Economic Commission (DWK), created as an institution of the Soviet occupying power to administer their zone with the ultimately unsuccessful goal of maintaining the economic unity of Germany, decided in the 33rd meeting of the DWK Secretariat on September 15, 1948 (resolution S 209/48 ) to form a patent, utility model and trademark registration office in the existing office for invention . Rooms for this were provided in the house in which the DWK was based. This gave the later office a prime address in the former government district: Wilhelmstrasse 97 / corner Leipziger Strasse 5–7 in Berlin W 8. The building was the new building of the Aviation Ministry built in 1935 on the site of the former Prussian War Ministry. After the founding of the GDR, the DWK was dissolved and the building became the house of the ministries for more than 40 years .

The building of the former Imperial and later Reich Patent Office at Gitschiner Strasse 97-103 was only about 2 km away, but was not available because it was in the US sector. In addition, it has been used by the USA since the end of the war for its own patent exploitation as a reparation payment. From 1951 a branch of the German Patent Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, which had been relocated to Munich, was set up there.

After two years, the registration office then moved into a former office building in Mohrenstrasse 37b, also in Berlin W 8 , in September 1950 as the newly established Office for Inventions and Patents . A special feature of the house now in use are the Moorish colonnades , which Carl Gotthard Langhans 1787 as elements a bridge over one of the former moats in Berlin. The houses at Mohrenstrasse 37 and 40/41 were built on the filled-in part of the trenches, where the colonnades were used as part of the facade and were thus preserved in their original location.

Today the Federal Ministry of Justice is in the building.

tasks

The Office's activity was part of the management of science and technology by the Council of Ministers. It was therefore primarily aimed at the implementation of the SED's orientation through the main directions and priorities in science and technology by the year 2000. Of particular importance was the influence of the office on the following points:

  • the implementation of the requirements for higher refinement of raw materials
  • the creation of new materials
  • the rational production and use of energy
  • the development of key technologies in "priorities to be resolved according to plan for inventors and innovators in the combines , companies and scientific institutions"

Accordingly, it supported the development of the inventor activity and innovator movement, which should contribute significantly to the performance of the economy. The duties of the office were laid down in its statute. After that, the office had in particular:

  • to orient the activities of the state and economic management bodies towards the fact that the patent, design and trademark system, the inventor activity and the innovator movement should make an effective contribution to the solution of the main task in the "shaping of the developed socialist society",
  • To draw conclusions for his own work and that of other state organs from the analyzes of the economic effectiveness of the patent, design and labeling system, the inventor activity and the innovator movement, to be carried out under his responsibility, to enforce the state requirements in this area, to prepare necessary decisions for the Council of Ministers and to control their implementation,
  • to perceive the responsibility incumbent on him for the "further development of socialist law" in the field of patents, designs and labeling, inventiveness and the innovator movement and in particular to analyze legal implementation, to influence the uniform application of the law and a high level of legal effectiveness and to support the "political-ideological work" through effective public relations work,
  • to coordinate and support the measures of the central state organs for the development of patents, designs and labeling, inventiveness and the innovator movement,
  • exemplary achievements in the development of the innovator movement "to be recognized morally and materially" and to ensure the preparation of decisions for the "central state recognition of outstanding inventive achievements",
  • to promote or secure the popularization of exemplary achievements in the development of inventor activity and the innovator movement

Magazine publication

In order to support the tasks of the office, especially with regard to the nationwide innovator movement, the office published the magazine Der Neuerer - magazine for inventions and suggestions . From the first year in 1952 to the 13th year in 1964, the magazine appeared under the title Inventions and Suggestions . It appeared under the tighter title Der Neuerer from the 14th year 1965. It was discontinued after the political upheaval in the GDR in the 39th year with the issue 4/1990.

Cooperation with other institutions

In order to fulfill its tasks regarding the development of the innovator movement, the AfEP concentrated on the cooperation with the FDGB . In solving the other tasks, the AfEP worked with the Ministry of Science and Technology , the Ministry for State Security , the Office for Standardization, Metrology and Goods Testing , the Office for Industrial Design and other state bodies and social organizations , especially the trade unions, the KDT and the FDJ , together.

The AFEP worked with the offices of Inventions of the other member countries of CMEA together. The head of the AfEP was a member of a special Comecon body, the "Advising the heads of the offices for invention of the member countries of the Comecon".

Patent register

The activities of the AfEP also included the announcement of patent registrations , the granting of patents or the declaration of the nullity of a patent, the registration of trademarks and designs as well as the implementation of individual related procedures, as well as the information about domestic and foreign registrations and Literature in these fields. The AfEP kept a patent register and issued patent specifications.

As a result of the examination of the patent application, the legally relevant data was entered in the patent register when the patent was granted for an invention . Following this process, the AfEP published a patent on the invention (Section 23 Patent Act).

The registration of the patent in accordance with Section 22 of the Patent Act is linked to information about the granting, correction, declaration of nullity, expiry, data on the inventor, the company where the invention was developed and the patent owner. It also regulates the conversion of patents from exclusionary patents into business patents .

Details of procedural law relating to the patent register, such as inspection, changes to the details of the patent and the deletion of entries in the patent register, were regulated in Section 8 and Section 22 of a special order.

Trademark sheet

From 1955 the AfEP published the trademark sheet . The AfEP exercised the rights and obligations of the national authority of the GDR resulting from the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property . It had the right to inspect companies and their higher-level bodies, to receive reports on their activities and to immediately request the implementation of measures.

literature

  • Statute of the Office for Inventions and Patents - Decision of the Council of Ministers of June 15, 1978 (Journal of Laws of 1978 No. 18 p. 217).
  • Patent Act of September 6, 1950, revised on October 27, 1983 as the Act on Legal Protection for Inventions - Patent Act. In: GBl I, 1983, No. 29, p. 284.
  • AO on the procedure before the Office for Inventions and Patents to ensure legal protection for inventions of November 10, 1983 ( GBl I, 1983, No. 34, p. 331).
  • Matthias Wießner: The patent law of the GDR . In: Zeitschrift für Neuere Rechtsgeschichte , 35, 2013, 3/4, pp. 130–171.

Web link

History of the German Patent and Trademark Office at a glance , German Patent and Trademark Office .

Individual evidence

  1. ^ German Federal Archives - DWK DC15 / 971 Meetings of the Secretariat
  2. ^ Mohrenkolonnaden in the Scientific Image Archive for Architecture
  3. ^ Maria Curter: A new office for inventions . In: Berlin monthly magazine ( Luisenstädtischer Bildungsverein ) . Issue 3, 2001, ISSN  0944-5560 , p. 133-135 ( luise-berlin.de ).
  4. ^ The founding buildings by Karl Gotthard Langhans


Coordinates: 52 ° 30 ′ 43.6 "  N , 13 ° 23 ′ 43.3"  E