Patents listed in any of the files that follow this introduction can be accessed in one of the following ways:

(1) Go to US Patent and Trademark Office, http://appft1.uspto.gov/netahtml/PTO/srchnum.html, and enter the (US) patent number to be retrieved. For patents issued before 1976 a TIFF viewer (such as AlternaTIFF, free download) is needed (then click on "Image" at the USPTO site that shows up).

(2) The German Patent and Trademark Office database is available at http://www.depatisnet.de. Enter the country code (e.g. US, or DE, or GB ...) as well as the patent number, then hit enter or click on "search" ("suchen")

(3) Another possibility to view patents from almost any country is offered at the European Patent Office, http://de.espacenet.com (or http://gb.espacenet.com ). Click on the red link to " weltweit - 30 Millionen Dokumenten" ("worldwide - 30 million documents") to get at the search form where you enter either a title, a keyword, a country code plus number, inventor, or year of invention etc. or any combination of those to limit your search.

In cases (2) and (3) you need a (current) version of Acrobat Reader (as the patents are saved in .pdf files), and Javascript should be enabled in your browser´s (e.g. Netscape Version 4.7 or more recent version) configuration. Each page of a patent is saved in a separate pdf-file. Use the black arrows (|< < > >|) displayed above the text to navigate through the pages.

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