Since Tuesday, 24 June 2014, the electronic trade mark examination support tool now contains all geographical indications protected through international treaties in Switzerland. However, as this involves more than 8,000 indications, the international treaties are not displayed in a standard search. To search for protected geographical indications, the 'international treaties' option should therefore be selected in the top right-hand search box.

Substantive decisions on oppositions are also now accessible via the examination support tool since this date. They are therefore no longer available on the IPI website. This means that all 1,500 substantive decisions made by the IPI on oppositions since mid-2008 are contained in the examination support tool. To search for a decision on an opposition, open the 'Opposition' tab from the examination support tool page. A search screen similar to the one for searching trade mark examinations will open in which a search can be carried out for decisions on oppositions by the IPI. The search can also be refined by trade mark element, the class of goods and services concerned as well as decision date. The IPI has also made information available on the most relevant topics of the proceedings of approximately 60 landmark decisions.

Tips: Here is some general information concerning search syntaxes in the trade mark examination support tool. For both trade mark examination and opposition searches, the absence of an asterisk (*) will result in all signs being found that contain the character sequence entered regardless of the string’s position in the term. To refine the search, use the asterisk as follows: if the character sequence should appear at the end of the term searched, enter the asterisk before the character sequence (e.g. *way); if the character sequence should appear at the beginning of the term searched, enter the asterisk at the end of the character sequence (e.g. broad*).

The examination tool (only available in German, French and Italian) can be accessed either directly or via the IPI website. Don’t hesitate to contact us with your feedback or suggestions on the new contents and functions of the examination support tool (tm.phnot shown@ipito make life hard for spam bots.ch).