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
- Swissreg
- Madrid Monitor
- TMview
- E-trademark
- IR-online
- 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
- Trademarks: 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
01.04.2021 | Media release, Law and policy, Law enforcement
United against ‘Swissness’ misuse – the IPI and Swiss exporters are working together
...more
31.03.2021 | Media release, IPI
IPI Director General becomes delegate in the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation
...more
23.03.2021 | IPI, Media release, Patents, Trade Marks
Counterfeits are costing Switzerland dearly – a new OECD study concludes
...more