Introduction

My original plan was to create a database of Luxembourg patents up to 15 February 1945 [1], the grant date of the first Luxembourg patent incorporated into the ESPACENET database set up by the European Patent Office.

When I started the present project, I did not know that a patent law had already been introduced in the territory of Luxembourg as early as 1791 under the French Regime, and that this law continued to be in force until 25 January 1817 when the Dutch Regime under Guillaume I introduced a new patent law for the Royaume des Pays-Bas, including the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg. [2]

It would appear that at least two Luxembourg residents obtained a patent of invention under the French Law of 1791 as co-inventors [3] before the Dutch Law of 1817  came into force.

The patents granted to Luxembourg residents under the Law of 1817 are documented in the National Archives. This law required that Luxembourg residents filed their patent applications in Luxembourg-city and submitted the applications to an examination procedure before grant.

A total of 13 patent applications were thus filed between 1817 and 1829 and they were recorded under numbers 1 to 13 in the Register of patent applications. Only two of these passed the examination stage and were granted.

In 1830, when the Belgian provinces separated from the Royaume des Pays-Bas, the area of patent protection of the Royaume broke into three separate territories. From then, patents in Luxembourg could only be granted for the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and this, of course, had an impact on the Luxembourg Register. The old Register was kept, but the numbering system was discontinued and no new numbering system was introduced.

Of the 322 patent applications filed between 1830 and 30 June 1880, only 177 patents were granted. As the patent applications did not receive official identification numerals I decided to allocate sequential numbers to them according to their date of entry into the Register.

However, the Register was not kept with great care so that a number of applications were not  recorded; I included them in my listing in the appropriate time sequence by allocating them numbers with a “letter” suffix (e.g. n° 13a, 19a …).

When the 1880 Law came into force on 30 June 1880, it overlapped with the 1817 Law, as a number of patents under this new law were still pending examination. However, the 1880 Law allowed for patents filed under the 1817 Law to be converted to patent applications under the new legal system and many applicants took this option.

Under the 1880 Law a new numbering system was introduced, starting with N° 1 on 10  July 1880.

In the year 1992 the 1880 Law was abolished and replaced by a new Law in line with the European Patent Convention of 1973.

Scope of Dictionary

The present dictionary covers patents obtained by Luxembourg residents, irrespective of their citizenship. It also incudes patents obtained by inventors with Luxembourg citizenship, but residing abroad.

The time frame covers the period from 1791 to 1905 without gap. As of 1906 the dictionary does not include Luxembourg patents.

The Dictionary also lists a few Luxembourg citizens that have been reported in the past as patented inventors but whose so-called patents could no be located.

Explanation of indexing parameters

Country Codes

The country codes used for identifying the patents are the two-letter codes known as “WIPO ST.3” standard.

e.g. BE for Belgium, FR for France, DE for Germany, GB for United Kingdom, etc …

Patent numbering

Luxembourg

From 1791 to 1817, the patents in force in Luxembourg were French patents, they have been identified by their French numbers (see below).

From 1817 to mid 1880 Luxembourg patents were issued under the Dutch Law of 1817. These patents were not officially numbered and in the present database have been assigned numbers in the series of A000 to A000 in chronological order according to their date of application. (Patents issued as of the 1830s were valid only in the Grand-Duch of Luxembourg.)

Patents granted under the Luxembourg Law of 1880 received official registration numbers.

France

Patents under the Law of 1791  are numbered in the series FRAA000

Patents under the Law of 1844 are numbered in the series FRAB000

Germany

Prior to 1878 German patents were issued by each Land; their validity, however, extended to all the contracting parties of the Zollunion, including Luxembourg (as of 1943).

Patents under the Reichspatentamt (as of 1 July 1877) received official numbers in the series DE000

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom changed its numbering system on several occasions;

From ___ to __the UK applied a running numbering sytem, GB000;

in __ it changed to a yearly numbering sytem, starting each year with number “one”: e.g. 1878/01234

Indexing parameters used

Luxembourg

Name of cities

For cities that have both French and German names, the French name has been used (e.g. Septfontaines, rather than Simmern, Pétange, rather than Petingen etc.)

Under construction !

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