SWITZERLAND Law and Practice Contributed by: Lara Dorigo and Alexandra Bühlmann, Pestalozzi
Application Procedure Under the revised PatA, the application docu- ments may also be filed in English, thereby allowing patent applicants to use documents that have been prepared in an international con- text in the Swiss grant procedure without the need to prepare translations. However, proce- dural decisions and orders will still be issued in an official language of Switzerland. Currently, the average costs for the grant of a patent by the IPI amount to approximately EUR700 (without any fees for optional searches). To take a patent application through to the grant stage before the EPO, one may expect costs of around EUR5,000. These costs do not include the fees for the consultancy services of a patent attorney. Swiss residents do not need to be represented by a patent attorney before the IPI, but appli- cants (natural or legal persons) who have neither residence nor a place of business in Switzerland are obliged to be represented by a local pro- fessional representative. Similar rules apply for residents of non-contracting states in front of the EPO. Trade secret protection is granted by law, without any examination or registration by any authority, provided that the undisclosed invention meets the conditions for protection, such as confiden- tiality and an interest in such confidentiality. 1.3 Timeline for Grant Procedure Currently, patent examination by the IPI for grant- ing a national patent may last between one and two years or even longer, depending on whether the IPI is asked to provide a report on the state of the art or arrange an international-type search (Article 59 paragraph 5, PatA). Patent granting proceedings by the EPO usually take longer, as
European patent applications have the same effect in Switzerland as national patent applica- tions filed with the IPI (Article 110, PatA) and are recorded in the Swiss register once granted by the EPO. IPI Procedure and “Unexamined” Patents The IPI currently examines national patent appli- cations only with respect to formal requirements and selected legal requirements, such as the technical nature of the invention, whether the invention is contrary to public policy or moral- ity, the clarity and uniformity of the claims and added matter. In contrast to the examination procedure of European patents by the EPO, the IPI does not examine the material requirements of novelty and non-obviousness before granting the patent (Article 59 paragraph 4, PatA). In the context of an ongoing partial revision of the PatA, the Federal Council proposed to intro- duce an optional full examination – which was unanimously accepted in parliament in 2024. The newly established compromise allows appli- cants seeking a fast-track patent to continue applying for a “partially examined” national pat- ent, as before. In contrast, those desiring greater legal certainty at the time of application can now opt for a “fully examined” national patent com- parable to a patent granted through the Euro- pean Patent Office. As a result, inventors would have the choice between applying for an “unex- amined” or a “fully examined” national patent with the IPI. It is worth noting that the request for full examination may also be filed by third par- ties, against whom the patent resulting from the application could potentially be held at a later date. In addition, in each case, a public state of the art search report would be prepared, which is intended to give preliminary indications as to the novelty and inventive step of the claimed invention.
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