Vocabulary:

The acronym D.R.P. with or without punctuation stands for Deutsches Reichspatent which literally means 'German imperial patent'.

Such a patent registration was based on the 'Reichspatentgesetz' (German imperial patent law) which had been verified by the German authorities on May 25th 1877 after a long and hard struggle to introduce a set of rules and regulations since the first ideas for such a law had been discussed by the Prussian Borad of Trade back in July 1853. Even if it had taken 24 years for the German authorities to set it up, it's introduction was on extreme short notice as it was declared operational as from July 1st 1877, a mere month after its verification.

Of course such a unified patent law was quite spectacular at that time and so one would believe that the first patent itself would have been something special. But the first 'Reichspatent' was very unspectacular and was issued on the name of Joh. Zeltner who owned the 'Nürnberger Ultramarinfabrik' and had patented his method of synthetically manufacturing Ultramarine, a coloring substance that is still used even today. Patent 532 by the way was issued to Nikolaus August Otto and describes an extremely peculiar device named the 'Otto engine' - which of course is the anchestor of todays car engines.

It should be noted that many manufacturers could not afford the fees needed to register for a full patent. One should take into count that German patent registration fees (as was openly criticized during the year 1906) where two and a half times higher than in England - and 36 (!!!) times higher than in the US.