Newsletter no. 3/2018 “Legal Information” | Eidgenössisches Institut für Geistiges Eigentum

01 Revisions to Patents Act as per 1 January 2019

A partial revision to the Patents Act and its implementing provisions will come into force together with an ordinary revision of the Therapeutic Products Act on 1 January 2019. This was decided by the Federal Council at its meeting on 21 September 2018 (Media release of 21 September 2018).

The partial revision introduces the following improvements for medical personnel, pharmaceutical manufacturers and consumers:

Firstly, restrictions to the free choice of medical treatment will be removed, which is the result of a change in case law by the European Patent Office’s Enlarged Board of Appeal (see Question 11.1053 from former National Councillor Gysin). In addition, the prescription of medicines by medical personnel in individual cases and the individual preparation of medicines in pharmacies will be excluded from the effect of a patent.

Secondly, the revised Patents Act will encourage the development of safe medicinal products for paediatric use. As an incentive to remedy the lack of medicines specifically for children, the revised law will provide for a six-month extension to protection for pharmaceutical manufacturers as compensation for carrying out paediatric studies for medicinal products. This extended patent protection can be obtained with either a paediatric extension to a supplementary protection certificate or via the new paediatric protection certificate.

02 Information event on the revised Patents Act for experts and practitioners

An information event will take place at the IPI on 16 October 2018 on the changes to patent law that will come into force on 1 January 2019. The IPI will present the new procedures for the ‘paediatric extension’, while Swissmedic representatives and the pharmaceutical industry will highlight other aspects that should be considered in practice. There will also be the possibility to discuss together any outstanding questions before the new provisions come into force.

You can find further information about the event on our website.

03 “Patents and Designs” Newsletter

The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) has been providing information from the field of law to those interested via this newsletter for some time.

It is also possible to register for a “Patents” newsletter; however, there have not been any regular issues recently – so we would like to change that! Therefore, in parallel to this newsletter, we are issuing for the first time a new newsletter called “Patents and Designs”, which aims to inform you several times a year about the latest news and provide valuable information from the IPI's patent division.

If you would like to subscribe to this new newsletter too, you can log on to www.ige.ch/en/services/news-service and adjust your profile settings accordingly.

The “Patents and Designs” newsletter will be published in German and French, and archived under www.ige.ch/en/services/news-service/news-service-archive. Each issue of the newsletter will be announced in the news feed on the IPI's website.

04 Training

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Yours sincerely,

Federal Institute of Intellectual Property
Felix Addor
Deputy Director General