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Technical inventions can also be protected in the form of a utility model. Unlike a patent, the invention is registered without an examination procedure for a maximum term of 10 years.

Scope of application:
Patentable are technical inventions, e.g. machines, devices and equipment, circuits and chemical products.

Exclusions:
Aesthetic creations (designs), rules of games; “procedures,” including inventions that are purely applications.

Prerequisites:
The object of a utility model registration must be “new” and be based on an “inventive step,” i.e. it must be something that is more than what an average expert would be able to deduct from the known technical state of the art.