Frequently asked questions

Almost any sign that lets customers tell your goods or services apart from someone else's: words, names, logos, slogans, letter and number combinations, and in some cases shapes, colours or sounds. What cannot be registered are signs that merely describe the product, generic terms, misleading indications, and signs that offend public order.

It has to be distinctive, capable of identifying where the goods or services come from, and it must not be purely descriptive or deceptive. It also must not collide with earlier rights, such as prior trademarks registered for identical or similar goods and services in the same jurisdiction. The IPI does not check conflicts with earlier marks for you, which is why we recommend a proper availability search before any filing.

You file an application with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI), naming the mark and the goods and services it should cover. The IPI examines the application on absolute grounds and then registers the mark. Publication of the registration opens a three-month window during which owners of earlier marks may file an opposition.

Ten years from the filing date, and it can be renewed for further ten-year periods without limit.

A Swiss trademark must be genuinely used for the registered goods or services. After the statutory five-year grace period, uninterrupted non-use can expose it to cancellation unless there are valid reasons. When the period starts can depend on opposition proceedings. Keep dated evidence of use; registration and renewal alone do not eliminate non-use risk.

No, they are three different things. Entering a name in the commercial register or buying a domain gives you no trademark rights, and vice versa. The safest position is to align all three: company name, domain and registered trademark. Our guide to company names and trademarks explains where each right stops.

Usually through the Madrid System administered by WIPO, which extends a Swiss base mark to the countries you select in one procedure. Direct national filings or an EU trademark at the EUIPO can be the better route depending on your markets: we design the strategy case by case.

Patents protect technical inventions that are new, involve an inventive step and are industrially applicable. Mere ideas, discoveries and business methods as such are excluded. One rule matters above all: keep the invention confidential until the application is filed: your own publication can destroy novelty and with it the patent.

A patent can last up to twenty years from filing, subject to annual fees. Protection in Switzerland is available through a national application or a European patent with effect in Switzerland. Under the current Swiss procedure, the IPI does not examine novelty or inventive step. From 1 January 2027, a search will be mandatory and full examination can be requested. The appropriate route depends on the target markets, budget and intended use of the patent. Swiss patent law changes in 2027.

The appearance of a product: its shape, lines, surfaces and colours. In Switzerland a design must be new and original, and protection runs in five-year periods up to a maximum of twenty-five years.

In Switzerland, copyright arises automatically when the legal requirements are met; there is no copyright register. Literary and artistic works generally need individual character. Photographs of three-dimensional objects also receive protection without individual character. Most works are protected for 70 years after the author’s death, computer programs for 50 years after death, and photographs without individual character for 50 years after their creation.

Keep dated source files, version histories, correspondence and signed handover records. We can help you organise these materials and review the ownership documentation relevant to your work.

Yes. We represent clients in opposition and cancellation proceedings, act against counterfeits and domain grabbing, and manage take-downs of pirated content. Prevention is cheaper than litigation, which is why monitoring is part of our portfolio management.

We are based in Lausanne and act throughout Switzerland, in the EU, in Ukraine and in Central Asia through our partner network, in English, French, German, Italian, Ukrainian, Russian and Polish.