Patent filing: protecting an invention

Patentability check, filing in Switzerland, European and international extension, maintenance. With one advantage: we understand the invention, not just the paperwork.

What can be patented

• A new technical invention that involves an inventive step and is capable of industrial application.
• Not everything can be patented. The preliminary check exists precisely to establish whether the idea meets the criteria, before you invest in filing.

The prior art search

• Before filing, it is worth establishing whether the invention really is new and original, through a prior art search.
• You can ask the IPI for a Swiss search (within 14 months) or for an international search carried out by the European Patent Office (within 6 months). Either way a search fee applies.
• This is the step that stops you patenting something that already exists — or finding out too late, once the money has been spent.

How the Swiss procedure works

• You file with the IPI. A complete filing secures a date and an application number.
• The application, together with any search report, is published within 18 months of filing or of the priority date.
• Some two to three years after the application, the examination fee falls due and the examiners review the technical content.
• The patent has to be kept alive by paying the annual fees: if they go unpaid, the invention loses protection.

The reform of Swiss patent law

Here is something few people know, and it changes what the right is worth: to date the Swiss patent has been granted without a full examination of novelty and inventive step, unlike the European patent. Holding a Swiss patent is therefore not the same as knowing it is sound.

That changes with the reform of patent law approved by the Federal Council, which comes into force on 1 January 2027. From that date every application will be accompanied by a mandatory prior art search, and the applicant will be able to choose between partial examination — as today — and full examination to international standards. The Swiss patent becomes more transparent and more secure as a result.

Anyone filing now has good reason to know this: two or three years usually pass between filing and examination, so many applications filed today will already fall under the new law. Setting the right strategy from the outset makes the difference.

Protecting the invention abroad

• European patent: a single procedure before the EPO, followed by validation in the countries you choose.
• International level: a PCT application through WIPO, which opens the door to many countries from a single initial filing.
• The strategy follows the markets where the invention is genuinely worth something: we help you decide where to extend and, just as importantly, where not to.

The patent as a tax lever

A patent is not only protection. In Switzerland the profits it generates can be taxed at a preferential rate under the Patent Box: in Ticino the relief reaches up to 90% of those profits.

Anyone filing a patent should weigh this up from the start, because the documentation the Patent Box calls for is far easier to build during the filing than afterwards.

→ Patent Box: cutting tax on patent profits

Why BS & Partners

• Real technical competence: a patent starts with an invention. Our grounding in mechanical engineering means we can understand the invention and describe it properly — not merely fill in forms.
• We act before the IPI, EPO and WIPO, and the UIBM for Italy.
• We join the patent and the tax advantage into a single course of action.
• Ten years in business, 117 projects, work in 9 countries.