The term Deutsches Reichspatent, abbreviated DRP, stands for German imperial patent. Such a patent registration was based on the Reichspatentgesetz, the German imperial patent law, which had been verified by the German authorities on 1877-05-25.
The decision was not an easy one, as the first ideas for such a law had been discussed by the Prussian Board of Trade as early as July 1853. Although it took 24 years for the authorities to set it up, it was introduced at extremely short notice, being declared operational on 1877-07-01, just one month after it had been reviewed. The office responsible for such registrations was named Kaiserliches Patentamt.
Of course, such a unified patent law was quite spectacular, unlike the first registered patents. Reichspatent #1, for example, was issued in the name of Johannes Zeltner, businessman and owner of the Nürnberger Ultramarinfabrik. He patented his method for the synthetic production of ultramarine, a dye still used today. Reichspatent #532 was granted to Nikolaus August Otto and covered an extremely peculiar device he had simply named the "Otto-Motor". Inventor Rudolf Diesel took a little longer, his engine was patented as Reichspatent #67207 on 1893-02-23.
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