Foreign Excellence Webinar #10 The Intelligent Attorney's Guide to Patenting in Germany

Transcript

Welcome to our former foreign excellent webinar series which is sponsored by Black Hills IP and slw Institute Black Hills IP is a us-based service provider offering IP docketing paralegal analytics and annuity services The slw Institute is an educational group created by the schwegman Lundberg and Worcester firm which aims to provide insightful and useful information to the IP community for this webinar series we have pulled together experts to talk about strategies and best practices for patenting in key foreign countries today we'll hear from Dr Tim Opperman from the PMP Law Firm about patenting in Germany the foreign Excellence webinar series is free schedule and registration information for upcoming webinars in this series is listed on the Black Hills IP website at blackhillsip.com we have allowed time for questions at the end of the webinar questions may be submitted using the questions button on the right hand side of your browser window you can submit a question at any time during the presentation we'll cue the questions until the end of the presentation where we'll address them as time permits thank you my name is Greg Stark I'm a principal with the schwegman Lundberg and listener firm my practice revolves around strategic portfolio development opinion and due diligence work in a variety of technical areas including software and medical devices with me today is Dr Tim Opperman from the PMP firm I'll let Tim give you a little brief intro into his background hi um my name is Tim oppeman I'm a German and European patent attorney with the PMP Law Firm PMP is pending money and partner we have three offices in Berlin Munich and Dresden and are an IP Boutique solely focusing on intellectual property with a strong focus on patent prosecution um thank you Greg for um inviting me for this presentation and I'm looking forward to your questions uh when the time comes next time thank you Tim so the first few slides of this webinar will provide us a little bit of context around the German economy as well as the German patent system and then I will hand things over to Dr Opperman who will walk us through the details of the German system in particular Tim intends to focus on how the German system differs from systems such as as the U.S system so first of all the slide that's up in front of you provides us a good look at uh at the German economy being the fourth largest economy in the in the world with a per capita GDP over fifty thousand dollars the GDP is broken down largely into industry and services with a small bit of agriculture the next slide provides us a look at the top 10 German Technologies in patent grants the next few slides we've shifted to looking at you know the patent system in general in Germany and providing some statistical view of you know how that breaks down here you know the largest category is transportation which really translates into Automotive as you'll see in the next slide and there we you know we also look at things like engines and turbines measurement equipment Medical Technology all the way down to Pharmaceuticals so a nice variety of things moving on to look at the top assignees in the patent system within Germany uh was interesting for me to see that Google is actually the number one assignee at least as of 2016 grants within the German system uh less less surprising I guess is that uh you know a large portion of the other top assignees are made up by Automotive companies such as Ford Audi Toyota GM Bosch Siemens BMW Volkswagen so I think that uh you know really speaks to the transportation being the number one category of of patents you know within the German system so the next slide here is a look at patent filings from non-resident filers and this is so this is direct filings into Germany by non-german companies so here you can see Germany in comparison to a number of other jurisdictions the numbers look fairly low and I think part of this as you'll see later is is largely skewed due to the fact that I think a large number of international filers you'll come into Germany through the European patent system you know so they do that they they do an EP you know patent application obtain a grant within the EPO and then get validated in Germany and those numbers are not reflected here this is this number is really just direct filings into Germany similarly to this patent grants this is also patent grants that are from directly filed applications in Germany so they you know these numbers look pretty low um you know I think in a vacuum these might be surprising that you know that's lower than jurisdictions such as you know even Mexico or India um again I think this is very reflective of of the fact that a large number of filers proceed into Germany through the through the EPO system moving on to patents and forks here I think this is uh numbers that are a little more reflective of how how large the German patent system really is you know here the German patent system jumps up above you know pretty much everybody in the in the comparison other than China Japan and South Korea so we believe these numbers are reflective of you know all patents enforce in Germany um although these numbers don't include utility models which Dr alberman will tell us a little bit more about in just a moment finally uh a quick view at um you know a snapshot of the lifetime costs of a patent within Germany um you can see a German patent is is actually fairly expensive in comparison to a lot of its peers um largely because of the annuities being a little bit more expensive and annuities are you know those payments you make periodically to keep a patent in force so you know Germany it's a fairly expensive proposition to keep your patented Force throughout the life of the patent with that I will turn things over to Dr Opperman and he will uh Enlighten us about uh the German system um thank you Greg um well uh in the in the slide that Greg presented um before you saw that the the approximate costs for getting a uh having a patent in Germany is actually quite High compared to most other countries so um before turning towards um a a brief introduction into the German patent system um I just want to get back to why one would actually get a patent in Germany and um I guess the the the the answer to that question is was already delivered in one of the first slides where it's you know it is one of the largest economies in the world and um besides being one of the largest economies in the world it is also the biggest Market in the European Union um and that offers you know several interesting uh protective schemes um for example there are some Industries for example the automotive industry where a patent in Germany offers you broad protection because very few car manufacturers might consider putting in a different brake system or different pump system into the car in different jurisdictions so they would like to say with one um producer of a brake system and since a lot of the European car makers or a lot of the large European car makers are situated in Germany and producer cars here having a single having a patent just in Germany instead of different jurisdictions of the European Union I might just do the trick to [Music] um uh move your way into the market um or um the the patent prosecution is well tested and can be moved forward at different speeds um Germany has known patterns for a long time um like um over a hundred years and the system itself has become very efficient um you can choose at which speed you want to move forward you can wait a little up to seven years as uh um I'll show you in a couple of slides before examination from patent begins but you can also get protective a protective um a pattern to protect your product really really soon in the form of a utility model for example the other thing that makes um a pattern in Germany is interesting is that the patent litigation system is also very efficient so if you do believe that you have a pattern that is being infringed by someone there are several possibilities of how you can move forward and uh tried to stop the infringement um so with that in mind um we'll just sorry um move to the sort of topics that I want to um give you a little bit of insight into um as Greg mentioned in the very beginning um I'm trying to focus on differences here um so I'll make a couple of assumptions and um hopefully that works and if it doesn't and if you have any questions please feel free to ask and I'll try to answer them um as best as I can um something that I've noticed um well let me start a little bit different um so I've lived in Germany most of my life I've also lived in the US for quite some time and when you live in the different countries you notice differences really fast half of the differences you don't notice but there are a couple of differences that you notice never since I've been living abroad you know the search for what what sort of things are being handled differently um has something that that I've noticed in a lot of places where I go assuming and from from most treaties that we have these days um a lot of patent systems are similar um for example especially with the American Events act um the um first invented to file is something that moved the U.S patent system closer to actually the German or a mostly European patent systems so instead of you know trying to focus on or giving you a full explanation of how the German system actually works I'm gonna try to focus on a couple of key differences and hopefully that gives you an idea of that most things that I'm not going to talk about do run sort of similarly um and that there are some things distinctly different and hopefully that there will be the take home message that you've learned a little bit about the differences so the topics I'm trying to cover is to go about the different paths to get to a German patent um what are patentability and formal requirements um to get a patent I'm going to talk briefly about utility models as an alternative to patterns um I'll give you a very brief introduction into litigation and defense uh once you have a pattern or an imprinting product and then as a final thing I'm going to talk about the Germany employee invention act which may be of interest especially for those of you who do have um um offices or branches in Germany that actually produce invention records themselves because German employee invention the the Germany employee invention act does provide a couple of Provisions which I do believe are quite different from UF law um regarding the first topic um Greg mentioned it earlier there are a lot of patterns that come from non-residents or even from Germans these days that do not enter Germany through the German patent office suit so speak um they do enter for example through the European patent office they're being granted by the European patent office and thereafter you can activate your European patent in Germany to so to speak that's called German validation so all of these different things lead to our routes to a pattern with effect in Germany so quite obviously what you can do you can file a Germany priority application with the um German and trademark office you could also do a foreign priority such as a U.S priority a Korean priority and then file a Paris convention filing in Germany also with a gptl um the other routes um the foreign priority to just um round that up could also be for example a European patent application um the third option is to go via a PCT application and there you can enter a German National stage directly with a gpto after 30 months so that's very similar to the US and as most of you who've done some sort of work in Europe probably know you can also go through EP Regional stage um where the deadline is a little later so 31 months and then once the EP patent or EP patent application grants you can do a German validation in the hopefully not so distant future you might also be able to have protection in Germany via a unitary patent however as that is still a symphony of the future we will not spend time to talk about this um all of these are different routes how you can enter Germany um what we're not going to focus on is any route that goes via the European system so we're just gonna focus on the first three options Germany priority application Paris convention filing or German National State at a PCT application um when it comes to the question whether you want to file a patent it's obviously interesting if the things that you can can get a pattern for are different in Germany or um and the US and the brief answer is yes it's a little bit different not too different but it is a little bit different um patent eligible subject matter um is similarly to other jurisdictions in the sense that it says um in the patent German patent law it talks about technical inventions so these inventions do not include scientific discoveries designs um algorithms business methods and software per se per se meaning that um if it's software that just shifts a bit around and these this it has no technical meaning so for example just resorting data for example um then it might not be patent eligible however make things a little bit more complicated of course you can do protect software to a certain extent in the sense of how you control a machine how you produce a signal used in telecommunications and even though that could also be considered to just be a data stream it does have a technical application so the software per se is actually very very much related to the algorithm uh argument given before also not included in Inventions is merely restating information um so um sorting sorting cards into a card folder it wouldn't be that would be just reorganizing information and that is not necessarily patent eligible once we've jumped across the hurdle whether it can be a technical invention some things are explicitly excluded from patentability and here I think it's a little bit or somewhat different from the US that um you cannot get a patent for any parts of the human body in particular stem cells or genes sequences so stem cells is not stem cell patterns should not exist in in the German patent system um offensive patterns is something that is also not patented eligible and offensive here is just an abbreviation for um essentially um inventions that could be used to torture people or main people or um scare people terribly that would be considered an offensive patent um you can patent weapons however there is a um there's a a thin line and to be honest sometimes I don't really know where that line is however where these offensive patterns do exist um they don't exist because they're excluded from um patentability human clothing and animal stem cell modification isn't patent eligible animal or plant breeding isn't path knowledgeable and something that um I often come across with because we do we do a lot of work on medical technology surgical therapeutic and diagnostic methods also excluded um from patent eligible subject matter so that that would be something that I find very different from the US um in terms of formalities personally I find getting a patent in Germany a little bit more simple or simpler than than in the US um so a minimal approach to a patent application is we need a written description and at least one claim um the patent application can be filed in any language however if the language is not German at some point a German translation needs to be filed um that is true for National filings Paris convention filings German National stages for um the EP German validations we only need a translation of the German claims after we have an intent to Grant but with all the routes that directly end up in the German national pattern a German translation needs to be fought at some point um what we also need is at least one applicant um the applicant you also need to name at least one inventor however this inventor needs to be named within 16 months um the German patent office will not question whether the applicant is actually the eligible applicant what they the applicant needs to show is you know whether they gotten the right from the inventor by by an employee contract or by any sort of contract but the German patent office will not actually double check whether that's true they will simply assume that the applicant is has the right to file the application and get a patent for it um the inventor does have the right to be named and an invention or an Inventus record needs to be filed in the timeline of 16 months and the German patent office will will tell them that you've been named as an inventor however the inventor can't really do anything it's the applicant who communicates with the office [Music] um furthermore you need to pay some fees and um the uh the application fee and the third fee and both of them are really moderate uh for example compared to um the European patent offices fees something that I've I've think is interesting in the in the German patent system is that no request for examination needs to be filed until seven years after the filing date so while you do need to file a search request when um filing the um the German patent application you don't need to request examination so essentially what you can do is you can say well I don't know if this product is going to fly or not or if we're going to use this pattern you can enter um you can file a German patent application with a German Patent Trademark Office and then just let it sit there for seven years and if after seven years you're of the opinion that this is still something that is useful you might enter examination [Music] um however if you choose to do that anyone could file or could request examination of the patent however that could not be done anonymously so you probably would know who is asking for examination um so that would be a very minimal approach to to a patent application so not really much is needed there are no declarations to be filed um the patent office simply assumes that the applicant has the right to file the application if that is indeed not the case and one of the inventors is of the opinion that the applicant is not the rightful owner of the application then they need to file a complaint um with the patent office and the patent office will start working from there however there is not a third party that could ask for such a investigation from the patent office um this makes things a little bit simpler when it comes to litigation because not as much you know there are not as many things that could result in a non-enforceable pattern based on formal matters so um if the applicant has no address or branch in Germany a German council is needed um so um whether you need a German council is um for for German people or German applicants they usually don't need a German Council when dealing with a German patent office however a previously a previously stated if the applicant has no address or office in Germany a council does become mandatory and I do apologize for a misspelling Council um so um that was just a quick run through patterns without too many timelines and dates to remember I'm pretty sure if you're interested and you don't have a branch in Germany you might have to talk to a German patent attorney anyway so they will really keep you posted on all the deadlines just as you're used to from from your attorneys an interesting construct which the U.S patent system as far as I do do know doesn't know are utility models utility models are commonly referred to as patterns little siblings mainly because the the time that they can protect excuse me um your product isn't quite as long it can only be extended for up to 10 years however really interesting aspects to this um utility model protection can be sought for inventions which can be expressed via device claims so no method claims are allowed for utility models protection duration is a maximum of 10 years and the interesting thing is it only undergoes formal examination so there's no search there's no assessment of novelty intermentiveness however once the utility model has been formally checked and is been entered into the German utility model register it is a title that you can sue out of whether that's always a smart idea is on a completely different um um a piece of paper but technically you do have a title with which you can uh go to court with what makes it really interesting from my point of view while you can file any type of invention as long as you can express it by device claims um as a utility model what makes it really interesting that it can be split off off from any living patent application not a pattern designating Germany so what you could do for example you have a German patent application you are dealing with the German patent office and you notice an infringer of the of something that you believe would be patent eligible so you could split off a utility model using claims that you think are a novel and inventive and B cover the product of the potential infringer you split it off it's being formally checked it's being entered into the register and then you can start going to court you don't have to wait for the German patent to issue of course you can only do that if the pattern hasn't been pending for 10 years but still it's an option what also makes it interesting is you can split off several utility models so this is not a one-time thing you can start splitting off a first utility model further on the road you can split off a second utility model that covers you know a little bit different uh subject matter and what is also interesting this doesn't also only account for German patent applications but also for European patent applications which still designate Germany as a as an as a state it can also be a TCT application which covers Germany as a state so the splitting off at any time is really an interesting strategic option which some of our clients and also the the adversaries of our clients have used uh when it comes to infringement proceedings um further specialty of utility models is that there can be double protection through a patent and a utility model so while you can't have double protection with two patents in Germany you can have a patent and a utility model that have pretty much identical claims and both of them offer you individual protection turning towards um German litigation and defense in a super brief manner the the biggest difference I find is the split proceedings between infringement and prosecution or revocation of the patent well EPO or the gpto are responsible for examining and for handling oppositions and patterns um the nullity which may happen after the opposition would not be handled by the court that is actually responsible for handling the patent infringement case it would be the German Federal patent Court um which is responsible for nullifying or declaring the pattern to be um novel and inventive or or formally um [Music] could be formally used as a pattern and while the patent infringement proceedings um happened in the regional court and then appeal goes to the higher Regional Court appeal it is not until the German federal court of justice so pretty much the highest court except for the German constitutional court that both of these proceedings are combined so it could very well be that a patent or a Regional Court finds that the infringer does infringe and then the German Federal patent Court says well you know they we're not so we're not addressing the question of infringement but we believe this pattern is invalid then the higher Regional Court of Appeal who addresses the patent infringement would say well we still believe that it's a valid patent and then it would be up to the federal court of justice to decide what's actually the case these split proceedings make it on the one hand very efficient because you can separate the question whether a pattern is valid from the pattern from the question whether you infringe on the other hand it's also very infringer or patenty friendly because you can start um suing infringers and the proceedings are independent of the Nullification or revocate revocation proceedings um and you might end up with a title way before the German Federal patent Court decides that the patent is to be nullified um that is just a super brief run through the German a pattern infringement and uh defense mechanisms however as I mentioned before the most notable difference I find is that the institutions are split and they're only being rejoined at the highest court level I mentioned beforehand that the German act on employees inventions um is something that I find quite different from US law when we file or previously well often happen when we filed PCP applications um coming from outside of Germany into Germany especially actually from the US where it used to be the case that all the inventors were the applicants and not necessarily the entity their employee was the applicant changing um changing the applicant to the actual company uh always entailed sending the work contract agreement between the employee and the um the company to the German pattern of the thing this is why we believe that the applicant can actually do this or that the applicant we want to include can do this and something that I noticed it is that very or not not just rarely it occurs that all the rights that arise out of patterns that were invented by some of the inventors essentially the [Music] um the uh the companies goods and they don't need to um re or let the employee participate in the money that they earn and that's very different from the German act on the employees invention since that sort of codifies what needs to happen when an employee makes an invention how he needs to be um uh renumerate so there's German Park uh German pact on the employees invention supplies if um an invention eligible for patent or utility model protection is made by an employee um the employees usual work or place of work is in Germany um and if these three things come together then we can distinguish between non-free inventions and free inventions so non-free inventions are inventions made during the time of employment which either result from the employee's obligatory activity in the company or are substantially based on experience and activities of the company so essentially when you have somebody working on machinery and as part of his job he made he made an invention that makes uh Life along the Machinery line a lot easier then he might not have had the um actual task to make this Improvement however this invention resulted out out of his obligatory activity or a based on this experience so it would be different if an employee makes Works in machinery and then makes an invention in something completely different for example a pesticide that he developed in a three time while he was working in the garden that would not be an invention that even though it's an invention that happened during the time of his employment it has nothing to do with this um activity for the um for the employer [Music] um so there are a couple of Provisions relating to non-free inventions and one of the most important ones is the obligation to report so an employee must report each individual non-free invention without delay in writing to the employer who must acknowledge the time of receipt in writing without delay this report in German case law there used to be a lot of confusion of how this report needs to be delivered whether it could be orally or whether it had to be written and a lot of that has been further specified by case law over the last 10 years so it needs to be in writing and in the report um the employee must give notice that it's a report of an invention and it can be a joint report if several employees are involved in this invention and the report must describe the technical object at solution and how the invention was made so simply filing an invention report saying I'm at an invention in machinery and not saying what it is is not an invention report um so there needs to be more there needs to be a solution and uh when the invention was made while doing what activity for the employer this um invention report then goes to the um employer and the employer May climb claim the right to the invention and it is considered to be claimed if he doesn't do anything and that's very different from 10 years ago 10 years ago the employer actually had to claim the invention in writing and for I um I think eight years exactly um this is not the case anymore it has been reversed so if the employer doesn't do anything it's automatically a claimed invention if it's not claimed the invention becomes free and the employee can make use of the invention without restrictions if it is claimed All rights regarding the invention are transferred from the employee to the employer and at the same time some obligations of the employer arise so the employees obligations after claiming right um the employer must without delay apply for a patent or utility model if more appropriate having effect in Germany unless the employee agrees to non-submission of an application or the employer has a legitimate interest to keep the invention secret provided he acknowledges patentability so essentially that means If an employer makes an invention and you claim the invention you need to file a patent application in most cases um and this is I think very different from from U.S law where the company has a much larger influence on whether they want to file the invention or not the employee doesn't have such high of an influence on this on this Choice which needs to be made and it's also particularly interesting if you do have an office in Germany where inventions could be made and such an invention report is being sent from you know maybe to headquarters in the US um since the working place for these people is usually Germany you might have to adhere or comply with this German employee in Vincent um what makes it even more complicated is so once you've filed in Germany um you also need to offer the employee in the states in which you don't choose to file for example via PCT um you must release the invention and allow the employee to file such an application so if you follow German application and say well the costs are too high to file a PCT you need to offer the employee to actually continue um with this application or the possibility to to file applications in different countries and give them a reasonable amount of time so he can do that so timing when it comes to employees inventions is actually something quite crucial um so you don't run into trouble because you didn't give opportunity to for the employee to claim it's right and then you need to file a PCT application simply because you didn't ask them soon enough the second or obligation that is important is that the employee has a claim to reasonable remuneration against the employer and there's a reasonable is um actually a constant matter of case law um there are guidelines issued by the minister or Ministry of employment um and the favorite way of determining an adequate remuneration is by analogy of of a license so how much money would the company have to pay if they had to obtain a license to use this patent and that's um a factor a certain factor of that amount of money would probably be a reasonable remuneration so this remuneration becomes due when the employer starts using the invention um and it needs to be fixed at the latest three months after Grant by an agreement or if no agreement is found by the employer so again as in the previous slide for the employer timing is crucial what makes it even more complicated is that in a lot of instances um you can't you can't uh make a contract with the employer employee that alters the right to his um disadvantage so the law of the employee invent act actually um has a couple of um paragraphs in it which make it very difficult to take away certain rights from the employer um so coming back to um abandonment of applications or productive rights um what needs to be observed if you want to abandon an application or protective right um as stated before you must inform the employee you can't abandon the application of the protective right until unless the employee has no claim transfer of the ride within three months so the three months deadline is actually something to keep in mind when dealing with pretty much most of the deadlines regarding the employee um employ a relationship after an application has been filed um otherwise the employer must transfer the right to the employee in that case the employer May reserve a non-exclusive right for the UC invention so while the employee can do with the invention what it wants to do you probably must reserve a non-exclusive right to further use of the invention and give it to the employer coming back to the um thing that I said at the beginning of last Slide the buying you know this law is binding so they cannot be altered to the employee's disadvantage um however agreements that can be made up front for each invention are permitted after the invention has been reported so what a lot of companies do in Germany is they have a set scheme of certain steps so they give the employee a certain amount of money after an invention record has been filed thereafter they give a little bit more money once the invention has been filed and more money if it results in a grant and if then um the revenue that they make exceeds a certain amount of money then you need to make a new individual agreement however that simplifies the process quite a bit and um um that's one way to to take a little bit of the heat out of this issue however um a lot of conflicts arise from this uh employee invent employees inventions act so it needs to be something that you keep in mind if you have offices in Germany and you're trying to manage them out of the US and I do believe I am at the end of my report I I hope it gave you a small overview of some of the differences that I see um and uh so if you have any questions please go ahead oh thank you thank you Dr Opperman uh we do we have received a couple questions why don't I start off with one that is is addressed directly to your last topic there um I will just go ahead and read it um you can I guess it's a couple part questions so why don't you just uh you know answer it as best you can uh so the answer the question goes how does the Germany employee invention act affect innovation do you think there are any updates to the existing law in the near future coming uh and what online resources do you recommend um you know to read up more on on that uh particular part of the German law that's a lot of questions um well um with respect to how to read it up online in English I'm pretty sure that it's possible but I do not know the best uh since I've never dealt with that topic that I had to read you know I had to read up in in English I would need to come back to you with an answer to that question so if the person who has posted a question would just you know a shoot of their email we will I will try to find a source that gives you a good idea you know an overview over the topic um regarding whether this is to change I don't believe so um I do believe that especially R D heavy companies actually benefit from this um because they can you do have a certain control over the quality of the invention because you can tell your um your employee that they need to add something to the invention record because you don't believe that it's complete yet so it's something that they can use to um to get patent protection or at least patent applications filed in Industries which are especially R D heavy and where it takes a long time between the actual first idea and the product that ends up in the market Medical Technology would be such a field where you know the time before when you have an idea to until the time when actually ends up being a product can be very long due to um um FDA approval or um EU approval so I think in some sense it does a not hinder innovation oh yeah that's it sorry go ahead oh okay very good all right so let's let's move on we do have a number of questions so we'll move on to the next one um the next one is when is a German attorney needed if you wait the seven years before examination um hold on I need to um when do you need a German attorney yeah specifically the the questions you know asking probably asking I mean my my interpretation of the question is during the seven years that you have the ability to wait before examination um is there anything in that time frame that you really would need to be engaged in a German attorney for well you need a postal address um so you need an address where the patent application is also is actually being filed to you know where anything any mail that is concerned with that needs to be faulty and that address needs to be the address of a German attorney so the German attorney might not do anything which is not what we usually do usually we're very very hard working but if he doesn't do anything because you don't follow the request for examination um you at least would have to name a German attorney as the postal address where all the communication with so they do so that you do have a representative in case something happens and I don't know what could happen but if something happens they need the postal address of a German attorney very good all right another question um does the German system have reduced fees for small or micro entities you know like they do in the U.S um oh you got me I don't know um I don't think so the only fee reduction that I know of is when after you have if you declare your willingness to license your patent um this uh willingness to license results in a 50 reduction of the annuities so if you believe if you want a puppy and you want to reduce the cost and you're willing to Grant a license to somebody who asks for it against my you know in return for money of course but um then you can bring down your um the um amount of money that you need to pay for the annuities by 50 percent is is is agreeing to licensing like this something that is commonly done or is it a fairly rare occurrence no it's something that's commonly done um that offer so if you you know if you think it's very important at some point and you don't want to license uh you want to take back the offer then you can um withdraw that request okay uh moving on to another question what is the typical prosecution time for a a patent versus a utility model um as I mentioned with the utility model since it's only being checked formally um it can be entered into the register and that's when it becomes effective can be I'd say less than three months something between two and three months um that is if you you know if you file it as you would file a patent application um and there's no formal requirements that the office things deems necessary it's a process of less than three months um patent prosecution is harder to assess um some I mean I've had patents that are being issued before they were published and I've had patterns that have been pending for 18 years um I would say generally if you file let's say if you file the request for examination straight away I would say probably between three and six years on average that would be my guess okay as a as a related question uh our renewal or annuity fees due during the application process or during the prosecution process uh or only after the patent issues yes um yes they are um which is also which would have been a good difference to uh point out yes you have to pay for every year that the um application is pending regardless of whether the patent office does anything or not um I usually find that a little frustrating especially when I haven't heard anything from the patent office in a couple of years well we try to do as a firm unless the client tells us not to we ask about once a year if we haven't heard back from them we ask them about one thing yeah hey what's going on um to bring you know to not have the feeling that the application is just lying around at the office however uh with for some clients the waiting is part of the deal so in those cases we don't do that yeah very good all right another question if an application designated in Germany or filed in Germany has been pending for 10 years is it is it possible to still seek protection via a utility model um I fear this question would come um I want to say no um because only once um let's postpone that question I'll have the answer in a couple of minutes very good all right well the last other question that we have kind of gets back to the uh employee invention act if we have an employee who is a German citizen but is working in our U.S office does the ACT still applaud it so it's a German citizen working in a U.S office and the U.S is his main office uh his main workplace let's assume that it is yes okay no then I think uh his work contract would also be based on U.S law so the German employees in Inventions Act is not bound to nationality but by place of work so by by follow-on if if it was a German citizen who was just visiting the U.S office but his main place of work was in Germany I assume then that the ACT would apply I would assume so yeah very good well we will try to follow up on the one question that stumped uh Dr Opperman but now we have we have reached our time limit um but we will uh we'll try to provide an answer out to the person who who submitted that question um if we have their contact information but thank you everybody for your attendance and the great questions uh appreciate it and appreciate Dr Opperman providing his uh insights into the German patent system all right thank you you