Trademark registration: Switzerland, Europe and international

We take you from the preliminary check through to filing, in Switzerland, the European Union and internationally — deciding together which territories actually matter to you.

Which trademark, for which territory

Trademarks are territorial: a Swiss mark does not automatically hold in the European Union, and vice versa. The first decision is not how to file, but where.

• Swiss trademark — protection in Switzerland, filed with the IPI.
• European Union trademark — a single registration with the EUIPO covering every EU country.
• International trademark — the Madrid System through WIPO, extending protection to several countries from one filing.
• Italian national trademark — filed with the UIBM, where Italy alone is what you need.

Anyone selling in Switzerland and in Italy or the European Union almost always needs more than one of these. This is exactly the kind of decision we help you make — and getting it wrong means discovering two years later that your mark is not protected where it mattered.

Registering the company name does not protect the trademark

This is the misunderstanding we run into most often. Entering the company name in the commercial register does not automatically protect the trademark: they are two different things, with two different procedures. Trademark rights require a separate registration.

The prior rights search

• Before filing, it is worth checking that the sign does not infringe earlier rights — an identical or similar mark already registered — in the territories you have chosen.
• Offices generally do not block a confusable mark of their own motion: the objection comes from the owner of the earlier mark. Better to find that out before filing than after.
• A search done properly saves time, fees and refusals.

How filing works in Switzerland

• Filing with the IPI, listing the goods and services — that is, the classes.
• Publication starts a three-month opposition period.
• Timescales: straightforward applications can be registered within days; normally within about two months of payment. An expedited procedure is available.
• Filing involves paying the IPI’s official fees, which are separate from our consulting fee.

How filing works in the European Union

• A single application to the EUIPO protects the mark in every country of the Union.
• Here too there is an opposition period for the owners of earlier rights.
• It is the route for anyone selling in several European countries: one registration instead of many national ones.

How international filing works

• Starting from a base mark — Swiss or European Union — the Madrid System, administered by WIPO, lets you extend protection to many countries through a single filing and a single procedure.
• The strategy — which countries, in what order — follows the markets you actually sell in, not a theoretical map of coverage.

How long protection lasts

• Generally ten years from the filing date, renewable indefinitely. That holds for both the Swiss and the European Union mark.
• The mark has to be genuinely used — in Switzerland within five years — or protection may be lost.

Why BS & Partners

• We act before the IPI, EUIPO, WIPO and UIBM: Switzerland, Europe, international and Italy, through a single point of contact.
• Genuine cross-border practice: we work on both sides of the border, which helps if you have a mark to protect in more than one market.
• A multidisciplinary approach: whoever registers a trademark often also has an invention worth patenting or a tax advantage worth taking.
• Ten years in business, 117 projects, work in 9 countries.