The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) is a public law institution with its own legal personality. It is autonomous in its organisation and operational management; it keeps its own accounts. It receives strategic objectives from the Federal Council for four-year periods.

The current strategic objectives apply from 1 July 2022 to 30 June 2026 and comprise the following programmatic priorities:

• The IPI plays a role in ensuring that Switzerland has appropriate, economically viable intellectual property protection. It thus promotes innovation, competitiveness, cultural diversity and social progress.

• It manages industrial property rights efficiently, and it uses digitalisation and its networks to ensure that procedures and register management are user-friendly and of a high quality.

• It offers efficient, user-oriented information services, taking account of changing needs and working intensively with industry and academia to boost people’s understanding of intellectual property.

• It plays a part in shaping international developments in intellectual property that are relevant for Switzerland.

• It networks within Switzerland and internationally to maximise the added value for users.

• It has a fair, transparent personnel policy, which ensures that it is an attractive employer for well-qualified, motivated employees.

• It follows a strategy based on sustainable and ethical principles.

In terms of financial requirements, the Federal Council stipulates that the IPI must be managed in accordance with business principles and that it must use its resources economically and effectively. It should continue to generate the monetary and non-monetary resources it needs for its tasks itself from fees and remuneration for services on the basis of private law, without resorting to federal funding.