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Notice of 24 April 2018

DPMA has revised encryption technology for data traffic on the Internet

The German Patent and Trade Mark Office (DPMA) has revised its encryption technology for data traffic on the Internet and will no longer use the previous transport layer security encryption methods TLS 1.0 and TLS 1.1. From now on, only so-called "cipher suites" with TLS protocol 1.2 are used on the public web servers of the DPMA, which comply with the requirements of Technical Guideline TR-0212-2 " Kryptographische Verfahren: Empfehlungen und Schlüssellängen, Teil 2 – Verwendung von Transport Layer Security (TLS)" ("Cryptographic Procedures: Recommendations and key lengths, Part 2 - Use of Transport Layer Security (TLS)") of the Bundesamtes für Sicherheit in der Informationstechnik (Federal Office for Information Security). A cipher suite comprises standardized cryptographic encryption procedures (algorithms and key lengths), which are intended in particular to make data traffic to and from government institutions more secure.

In order to facilitate the changeover for users of the DPMA website and the online services of the Office (DPMAconnect, DPMAregister, DPMAdatenabgabe, DEPATISnet, DEPATISconnect, Depatis externer Client, DPMAfachdatenbanken, TMView), the DPMA has tested various browsers and tools supporting the TLS protocol 1.2. Information on this can be found on the help page in DPMAregister. Information on other browsers that work with the new encryption can be found on the website of Qualys, a provider of security systems. Users can also try this link to test whether their self-developed clients (e.g. Java clients) can establish an encrypted connection to the DPMA.

Please note: DPMA customers who use self-generated Java clients based on Oracle Java 1.7.x or older can no longer search the online services of the DPMA with these Java clients.

Last updated: 24 April 18