Your inventions, protected where it matters.
Let's talkPatents and Utility Models
A patent runs up to twenty years from filing, and Switzerland offers two routes to it. We help you protect your inventions, at home and internationally, whatever your field of technology.
From mechanical and electrical engineering to biotechnology, chemistry, consumer goods and IT, we work with inventions across all technical fields. We assess the patent risks around your product, then chart a pragmatic route to protection that holds up in your home market and abroad.
Where speed and cost matter more than a twenty-year term, a utility model can be the better instrument. Switzerland's legal system has no utility model protection, but many of the markets our clients move into do (Germany, Austria, Ukraine and China among them), and we will tell you plainly which of the two fits the invention and the market.
Through our worldwide network of trusted correspondents your invention is protected wherever your business goes, whether by the PCT route, the European route or direct national filings.
Granted rights then need maintaining. We track every deadline, pay annuities on time, keep the records clean and forecast renewal costs ahead of budget season, so a growing portfolio stays an asset rather than an admin burden. And if a dispute arises, we stand beside you with clear guidance from the first letter to resolution.
Swiss patent law changes on 1 January 2027. A mandatory prior art search for every application, a new option to have novelty and inventive step fully examined, and renewal fees that start in the third year after filing and rise about 8% over a full term. We have set out every old and new official fee, the transition deadlines and a decision tree on our Swiss patent law 2027 page.
- 20 yearsMaximum term from the filing date, subject to annual fees
- 3 testsNovelty, inventive step and industrial application
Confidentiality first
Before anything else: an NDA where disclosure is unavoidable, and a hold on publications, pitches and launches until the filing date is secured.
Search and assessment
Prior-art and patentability searches, and where the risk sits the other way, a freedom-to-operate analysis of the field you are entering.
Drafting
The claims define the right you will own. Drafting is where a patent is won or lost, and it is done by qualified patent attorneys.
Filing and prosecution
National, European or PCT, with all correspondence with the office handled and every deadline docketed.
Maintenance and enforcement
Annuities, portfolio reviews, oppositions and appeals, licensing, and action against infringement when it comes to that.
Patents and complex technical matters are handled by qualified patent attorneys. Emmanuel E. Jelsch is a European and Swiss Patent and Trademark Attorney and a UPC representative; for jurisdictions outside our own admissions we work through a vetted correspondent network.
- Patentability assessment and prior-art searches
- Patent drafting and filing strategy
- Filing and prosecution of applications
- Utility model protection where available
- International protection (PCT, European and national routes)
- Freedom-to-operate and patent risk analysis
- Oppositions, appeals and invalidity proceedings
- Annuity and maintenance fee payments
- Worldwide portfolio management and deadline tracking
- Cost forecasting and consolidated invoicing
- Assignment, licence and franchise agreements
- Enforcement of patents and utility models
- Customs recordals and anti-counterfeiting
- Dispute resolution and mediation
Patents - the questions we are asked most
What can be patented, and what should I avoid before filing?
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.
How long does a patent last, and which route should I take?
Up to twenty years from filing, subject to annual fees. Protection in Switzerland can be obtained through a national filing or through a European patent validated in Switzerland. One difference matters more than the fee: the IPI grants a Swiss national patent without examining novelty or inventive step, so the right exists quickly and cheaply but is only tested if you enforce it, while the European Patent Office examines in full before grant. Which you want depends on whether the patent is there to deter, to license or to litigate.
Is there utility model protection in Switzerland?
No. Switzerland does not have utility model protection, so a national patent is the only route to a technical right here. Utility models do exist in a number of markets our clients care about (Germany, Austria, Ukraine and China among them), and they can be a fast, low-cost way to hold an enforceable right there while a patent application is still pending.
What is the difference between a patentability search and freedom to operate?
A patentability or prior-art search asks whether your invention is new enough to be patented. A freedom-to-operate analysis asks the opposite question: whether selling your product would infringe rights that someone else already holds. You can be perfectly free to patent something and still not be free to sell it, so for a product launch the second question is usually the more urgent one.
What does a patent cost?
Professional fees for drafting and filing are quoted case by case, because the work scales with the complexity of the technology. Official fees are separate and we always state them apart from our own. Annual maintenance fees then run for the life of the patent and increase over time, which is why we build a cost forecast with you rather than quoting only the first year.
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DO Innovations S.A. Chemin de Bon-Abri 26a1007 Lausanne
Switzerland +41 79 199 80 73
admin@do-innovations.ch Let's talk