Region: Switzerland

In <i>Chubb Corporation v Intellectual Property Rights Board of Appeal</i>,the Supreme Court has upheld the Board of Appeal's decision to refuse the registrationof the term 'masterpiece' for insurance and financial services. The court heldthat the term belongs in the public domain and that although Chubb had applied to register it for services rather than goods, this did not render it inherently distinctive.

30 June 2003

In <i>Mega Bloks Inc v Lego System A/S</i>, the Zurich Commercial Court has cancelled the defendant's form mark registrations for LEGO brand bricks, finding that Swiss trademark law only protects forms that are distinctive.

27 March 2003

The Federal Institute has adopted an accelerated examination procedure for marks that are registered in a Madrid Agreement or Madrid Protocol member country. As a result, owners of internationally registered marks will know eight months earlier whether their marks are protectable in Switzerland.

21 March 2003

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court has issued two landmark decisions concerningthe '.ch' domain space. The court ruled that (i) the test for assessing the likelihoodof confusion is based solely on the domain name and not the content of the website;and (ii) the courts have the power to order the transfer of domain names endingin '.ch'.

14 February 2003

The High Court of the Canton Zurich has affirmed the conviction of a wholesaler for selling fake Levi's jeans. The court upheld the first-instance ruling allowing Levi's to conceal from the court and the defendant the details of secret marks found only on genuine products.

27 January 2003

The government of Switzerland has ratified the Geneva Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Registration of Industrial Designs, bringing to seven the number of states that have ratified or acceded to the Geneva Act - the others being Estonia, Iceland, Republic of Moldova, Romania, Slovenia and Ukraine.

06 December 2002

The Commercial Court of Aargau has decided an important case concerning the legality of metatags. The use of a registered trademark as a metatag is generally permitted provided that the website owner does not create the impression that its business is connected to the trademark owner.

19 October 2001