Like all major examining patent offices, the German Patent Office (GPO) is increasingly facing problems of space and access in connection with its paper search file. After a planning period of approximately five years, realization of the pilot system for its electronic patent information system, PATIS, was started late in 1989. This project in respect of which the experience and results of similar projects at the American, European and Japanese Patent Offices have been taken into account to a large extent, is designed to secure in particular the search quality and, thus, the grant of valid industrial property rights for the economy and the possibility of international cooperation. It is intended to set out in the following the main results of the planning, the technical concept as well as the aims and the line of proceeding in realizing the pilot system of PATIS in two consecutive contributions.