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Notice No. 1/2026

of the President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office of 2 March 2026 concerning the revision of the Search Guidelines and the Examination Guidelines with regard to the use of external electronic sources of search, including by using artificial intelligence applications

The German Patent and Trade Mark Office is required by law to determine, upon request, the state of the art to be considered in assessing the protectability of an invention. The state of the art is held to comprise all knowledge made available to the public before the date governing the filing or priority date of the application by means of a written or oral description, by use or in any other way (section 3 (1) sentence 2 of the Patent Act). This means that the German Patent and Trade Mark Office is required to take into account the worldwide state of the art to the extent it is available. At the same time, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office must treat as confidential any information contained in patent applications that have not yet been published.

The knowledge available and retrievable worldwide is increasing faster than ever before in the age of digitisation and artificial intelligence. Such knowledge is regularly only provided in electronic form and, in many cases, such as in the fields of information technology or chemistry, only made available in external sources of search. Accordingly, a high-quality and modern search is often possible only if external electronic sources of search are also used, potentially including by using artificial intelligence applications.

For this reason, the German Patent and Trade Mark Office has revised its Search Guidelines, Examination Guidelines (both available at Forms/Patents) and Utility Model Search Guidelines (available at Forms/Utility Models). The revised versions expressly allow the examining sections to use external electronic sources of search, including by using artificial intelligence applications to the extent permitted at the DPMA, as part of the search. At the same time, it is clearly emphasised in the guidelines that the search must continue to be conducted in such a way as to not make available to the public any information contained in unpublished patent applications.

External electronic sources of search are subject to only limited control by the DPMA. Thus, even if all due care required in each individual case is exercised, it can never be completely ruled out that terms, sequences, chemical structures or text from applications may become accessible to third parties. Applicants who wish to avoid this residual risk should therefore consider postponing the filing of a search request or a request for examination of the application until publication of the application.

The President of the German Patent and Trade Mark Office
Eva Schewior

3620-4.3.2/2022-11

Last updated: 21 July 2026