Citizens' Campus: Design in the DDR - A project of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

Dr. Christoph Hoock - TU Ilmenau, PATON/Landespatentzentrum Thüringen
Design in the DDR - A Project of the German Research Foundation (DFG)

The indexing of the historical stock of design applications from the DDR period enables research for people interested in design, lawyers as well as industrial and economic historians. The lecture will report on a DFG project in which the PATON Institute of the Technical University of Ilmenau, together with the University Library (UB) and the Department of Graphic Data Processing (FGD), has electronically recorded approximately 15,000 applications for designs. Based on 200 card index boxes from the collection of the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) Berlin and the trademark and trade mark sheets from the PATON magazine, a searchable database was created. The applications filed in the GDR at the Office of Inventors (AfEP) from the years 1952-1990 are often linked to illustrations. This not only makes historical cultural assets accessible. In addition to the design register of the German Patent and Trademark Office (DPMA) of the Federal Republic of Germany, the collection can also be used for the examination of novelty and uniqueness in current design applications.