Beginning with the January 3, 2008 update (UD=20080103), German Patents Fulltext (File 324) has moved to a new format with additional content, new features and faster updating. The database now covers all German patents and published applications, as well as German publications based on EP or WO patents. Moreover, German patents, published every Thursday, should now be available in File 324 by Friday, U.S. Pacific time. 

New Content

The new format provides new content and several other enhancements that will be of interest to patent researchers, including:

• Searchable cited patent and literature references
• Current (reclassified) International Patent Classification codes
• Legal representative name and address
• Original designated states listed for EP and WO patents
• Embedded images of tables, charts and drawings
• Record output (via web browser interface) to a true HTML format, including tables, lists, and text formatting
• A series of important dates including date of first publication, patent date, novelty date, first priority date and first application date
• Enhanced imaging with more than one image, where available    

Note that because of difficulty with the quality of documents being scanned, the machine-generated English translation of the fulltext (claims, abstract and patent specification) will not be provided for File 324 records published from 2008 forward. English translations of titles, abstracts, text, and claims are available for the years 1980-2007.