For IP professionals
This is the portal for professionals working in the field of intellectual property. Here you'll find direct access to all necessary resources.
Quick links
- Trade Mark Database
- Register changes for trade marks
- Swissreg
- Madrid Monitor
- TMview
- E-trademark
- International trade mark registration
- Trade Mark Guidelines (German, French, Italian)
- Classification tool for trade marks
- Trade mark examination support tool
- Trade marks: Costs and fees
- Trade marks: WIPO fee calculator
- Cancellation procedure for trade marks on the grounds of non-use
- Protected public signs: Abbreviations
- Protected public signs: Other signs (emblems)
- Directory of Intellectual Property Offices
- Trade marks: News Service Archive
- Patents: Patent Examination Guidelines (German, French)
- Patents: Fees
What does the term ‘Public Domain’ mean?
As soon as copyright protection expires, you can use a work any way you want. Once the protection expires, the work is common property, meaning it belongs to the public domain and is free to use. This is why your friend can not only play Frédéric Chopin’s Raindrop Prelude for themselves at home, but also in front of an audience in the Zurich Tonhalle. But be careful – even if the work itself is no longer protected by copyright, the 1975 recording of the work by Maurizio Pollini for Deutsche Grammophon, for example, is still protected by related rightstypo3/.
You are also not permitted to modify a work that is no longer protected – if you paint a moustache on Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, you are distorting the work, but not infringing any copyright. Of course, you are not allowed to paint over the original in the Louvre in Paris – that would be damaging the Louvre’s property. You can, however, paint to your heart’s content on the Mona Lisa post cards sold in the museum shop and distribute them.
News
15.06.2022 | Trade Marks, Partners and initiatives
The IPI’s IP Management Award goes to Pettastic!
...more
24.05.2022 | Patents, Trade Marks
A strategy for success – how a Swiss start-up protects its inventions
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18.05.2022 | Media release, IPI
Federal Council adopts strategic objectives for Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property
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Events
14.04.2022 | Patents, Event, IPI
EPO/IPI - invitation to a free public online seminar on patenting topics in green tech
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01.10.2021 | Event, Partners and initiatives, IPI
How SMEs protect their primary raw material – know-how
...more