Substantive patent law is to be harmonised internationally. The European Patent Organisation and the intellectual property offices in 45 industrial countries, including Switzerland, have been pursuing this objective since 2014. The aim of harmonisation is to simplify and accelerate procedures, lower the costs for obtaining and enforcing patent rights, and increase the predictability of procedures, for example in terms of duration and costs.

We kindly invite Swiss users of the international patent system to play a part by providing us with their views on the harmonisation proposals. We are particularly interested in hearing your opinion on the grace period and its link to prior user rights.

The consultation period will run from 4 April to 20 May 2022. You can find all the necessary information on our website. The consultation document summarises the key points of the targeted harmonisation and contains a survey at the end.

We would be grateful if you would complete it and email it to us at splhnot shown@ipito make life hard for spam bots.ch by 20 May. If you require further information, please contact Anaïc Cordoba, +41 31 377 72 54, anaic.cordobanot shown@ipito make life hard for spam bots.ch.