On 12 February, the Federal Council discussed the question of AI regulation and decided on a sector-based approach (see the media release of 12 February 2025). Any legal amendments should ensure legal certainty and also take account of the rapid development and potential of artificial intelligence.

“In Switzerland, we need a vision of the values we care about in society and the economy and the extent to which we can maintain a society in which AI furthers these values and doesn’t undermine them.” We at the IPI agree with this statement made by Dr Dorothea Baur at CLTR 2024 . We therefore set out in search of such a vision and found what we were looking for!

From 1 July 2024, the new IPI directive for the supervision of the collective rights management organisations comes into force. It sets out guidelines for the IPI as supervisory authority when reviewing the management of the collective rights management organisations and is consistently focused on a risk analysis. The new directive replaces the one from November 29 2017 and will apply as of the...

Media companies are to receive remuneration from large online service providers for the use of their journalistic works in future. Journalists are to benefit from this too. The Federal Council opened the consultation on the amendment to the Copyright Act (CopA) on 24 May 2023. It will continue until 15 September 2023. Federal Council's media release Further information on our website

The Swiss Youth in Science National Competition is well underway. In three online workshops conducted by the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) in January, participants learned about the role intellectual property plays in their project work. Read the full article on the blog.

Content is constantly being posted and shared on the internet these days – whether on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. In doing so, however, other people’s photos are often being used without permission. Yet as easy as it is to post and share photos on these platforms, as easy as it is to infringe someone else’s copyright. The Copyright Act protects all photographs regardless of whether they have...

Thanks to tablets and laptops, you can consume films and series anytime, anywhere. If you are abroad, however, the screen often remains black due to what is known as geo-blocking. The EU has taken individual measures to this end. The OTM examined what the situation is like for Swiss nationals staying abroad as part of the Digital Switzerland Action Plan. For example, online content services...

With WIPO PROOF, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has launched a global online service that provides proof of the existence of a digital file at a specific point in time. The new service complements WIPO’s existing intellectual property systems by helping creators to take verifiable measures to better protect the results of their work. The system is intended to reduce the...

Whether an artistic photograph, an amateur snap, or a standard product photo – under the modernised Copyright Act (CopA) all photos are now protected, whether analogue or digital, or taken by an amateur or a professional. This applies whether the photographs have individual character or not. The extended protection for photographs is one of the main changes in the new Copyright Act. It comes into...

The revised Copyright Act strengthens the rights of creative artists and cultural industries, as well as facilitating research. The Federal Council put into force the revised act, which adapts the applicable law to technological developments, as of 1 April 2020. Further information can be found in the Federal Council's media release (only available in German, French and Italian).

On 11th February 2020, Switzerland ratified two agreements of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The Beijing Treaty improves protection for actors at international level by enabling them to make a case against any unauthorised use of their performances. Actors already have this level of protection at national level. The Marrakesh Treaty improves access to copyright-protected...

The Swiss courts regularly deal with cases concerning intellectual property law. The Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) has now published statistics on the court rulings.   The figures on IP rights in 2018 show, for example, that the most court decisions by far are made in the area of trade mark law (57%). This is followed by copyright law (27%) and patent law (9%).   ...

Industries in Switzerland that make intensive use of intellectual property rights (IPR) contribute significantly to employment and the gross domestic product (GDP). This is the conclusion of a European study that has just been published. The European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO) have examined the role IP rights play in economic performance,...

From 1 January 2018, the new IPI directive for the supervision of the collective rights management organisations comes into force. It sets out guidelines for the IPI as supervisory authority when reviewing the management of the collective rights management organisations. The new directive will apply as of the reporting for the business year 2018.  The goal of the modernisation was to bring the...