Trademark filing
Examination covers absolute grounds: descriptive, misleading or unlawful signs. Nobody compares your trademark with those already filed. So your mark can be registered and opposed within three months by an owner a prior rights search would have revealed.
Who it is forCompanies launching a name or a range, founders protecting their company name, creators and agencies, businesses extending an existing mark to new products.
Order
The prior rights search, the choice of classes that genuinely protect your activity, the electronic filing and follow-up through to registration.
Understand
What can I register as a trademark?
Any sign capable of distinguishing your goods or services from those of other businesses: word, design, combination, shape, colour, sound. Refused are signs in the public domain, purely descriptive or customary ones, unless they have become established through use.
Art. 1 and 2 TmPA
How are the classes chosen?
Protection covers only the goods and services claimed, under the Nice classification. Too broad, and you risk partial cancellation for non-use; too narrow, and the door stays open to a third party in adjacent activities. That is the work we justify in writing.
Art. 11 TmPA, Nice Agreement
How long does protection last?
Ten years from filing, renewable indefinitely for ten-year periods. But the mark must be used: after five years without genuine use in Switzerland for the registered goods, anyone may challenge it.
Art. 10 and 12 TmPA
What happens after registration?
The registration is published, and the owner of an earlier mark has three months to file an opposition. That window decides how solid your filing is, and it is why the prior rights search happens before, not after.
Art. 31 TmPA
Going further
FAQ
Strongly recommended, and the prior rights search is included in the filing. If the name is not yet settled, the name clearance check is broader: it also covers company names, domains and phonetic similarity, and tells you whether to change before printing.
They come on top of our fee and are paid to the Federal Institute: a filing fee covering three classes for ten years, additional classes charged individually, and a reduction for electronic filing. We state the exact amount for your list before filing.
No, protection is territorial. From a Swiss filing, international registration extends the mark to other countries within six months, with the priority of the original filing. Tell us your markets and we discuss it beforehand.
It depends on seniority and the proximity of the goods. The report says whether the risk is low, real or prohibitive, and what you could change to file anyway. We do not file a sign we expect to fall.
That is a separate service: monitoring alerts you for one year to any similar filing, with the opposition note ready if needed. Without monitoring, nobody will warn you.
A question before ordering?
A name already in use, a range to protect, markets outside Switzerland: describe the project here. Personal reply within two business days.
