European Databases | Federal Patent Court of Switzerland

The Federal Patent Court of Switzerland is the court of first instance in civil matters regarding patent rights.

• Since 1 January 2012 the Federal Patent Court acts as the court of first instance in civil-law disputes regarding patent rights. The court is seated in St. Gallen and was established through the Federal Act on the Federal Patent Court from 2009.
• The court is exclusively in charge of patent infringement and questions concerning the validity of patents. Other civil matters like disputes in patent license agreements or the rights to a patent are addressed as well.
• Decisions can be appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
• The Federal Patent Court consists of two permanent judges and 41 non-permanent judges. 13 of whom have legal training, while the remaining 28 judges have technical qualifications in fields like Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Electrotechnology and Medicine.
• Regular proceedings are discussed in panels of three, five or seven judges, providing expertise in legal matters and the relevant technical matters.
• In the past five years the court had on average 27 incoming cases per year.

• The official database for case law of the Federal Patent Court, including leading decisions, can be accessed via the court’s website.
• It lists decisions from 2012 onwards, sorted by year. The database provides both, procedural and final decisions.
• The user has access to an easy search function as well as a more detailed database query.

• The case law documents are only available in the language of the trial, which is mainly German and rarely French or Italian.
• The decisions are presented in a list. Each decision has a separate page where a pdf-file can be easily accessed.