Why this

Something has changed in Switzerland

Until recently, there were 26 competent first instance courts in patent matters in Switzerland. This large number of courts in a small country like Switzerland contrasted with only about 20 to 30 cases each year – in total. Moreover, the majority of cases was handled by only four commercial courts (Aargau, Berne, St Gall and Zurich) while others got little if no chance to gain experience in patent matters for years, sometimes decades.

In order to ameliorate this situation, the Federal Assembly of the Swiss Confederation enacted the Patent Court Act (PatCA) to install a centralised court of first instance in patent matters which is operative since 1 January 2012: The Federal Patent Court (FPC). Appeals against the decisions of the FPC can be lodged with the Federal Supreme Court.

How is it going, you ask? Well, that’s what this Blog is all about: To keep you up-to-date with respect to the case law of the FPC.

Now, how to benefit from this Blog:

The language

Most of the decisions and orders of the FPC are published in German language. In order to increase visibility and understanding of the case law of the FPC, this blog is in English language. (Note that English language may also be designated the language of proceedings before the FPC.)

Set-up as an information hub

The aim is to not only briefly review the case law of the FPC here, but to also provide easy access to any further source of information you might find useful in order to deepen the understanding of the new patent litigation system in Switzerland.

In addition, each post of this blog is categorized and tagged. Over time, this will result in an easily searchable database of the desisions and orders of the FPC.

Finally, the Blog is fully searchable, of course. The “Search” field is in the sidebar on the right side. Looking for a specific attorney, judge, party or patent number? Search it!

Keep in touch with email alerts

Sign up to email alerts and you will be kept posted automatically; see here.

Contribute!

Share your thoughts about the case-law of the FPC: Use the “Leave a Reply” section at the end of each post to open or participate in fruitful discussion on the merits of the cases. Or join the monthly ‘Fireside Chat’ on LinkedIn, always on the last Wednesday of a month, over lunch at 12:15 hrs.

Room for improvement

You feel I could do better? Drop me a line and I’ll see what I can do …

Cheers,
Martin Wilming

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