Trademark Docketing in Lausanne.

Trademark docketing Lausanne brand owners need differs from anywhere in the EU for one hard reason: the EU trademark stops at the Swiss border. An EUTM covers all 27 member states and gives no protection whatsoever in Switzerland, so a Lausanne brand — an EPFL medtech spin-out, or one of the dozens of international sports federations headquartered here — needs a separate Swiss national registration or a Madrid designation to be protected at home. That Swiss mark also follows unusual rules: a renewal window a full year long, and an opposition period that only opens after registration. PerspireIP builds the docket that keeps the Swiss clock, and the Madrid clock behind it, visible.

Why trademark docketing Lausanne portfolios need a separate Swiss clock

The most expensive misconception in a Lausanne docket is that an EU trademark reaches Switzerland. It does not. Switzerland is not an EU member, and an EUTM protects only the 27 member states — its rights end at the Swiss frontier. A brand that wants protection in Switzerland must hold either a Swiss national registration at the IPI, the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property in Bern, or a Madrid international registration designating Switzerland. There is no way for an EUTM alone to cover the home market of a Lausanne company.

That makes the trademark docketing Lausanne owners need fundamentally a two-system exercise. A company selling across Europe typically runs an EUTM for the EU and a separate Swiss right for Switzerland, each on its own clock, each with its own rules. The error we see most often is a portfolio built around the EUTM, with the Swiss registration treated as an afterthought — renewed late, or forgotten entirely — so the brand ends up unprotected in the very city where it is based. The Swiss mark is not a bolt-on; for a Lausanne owner it is the home right.

• EUTM stops at the border — an EU trademark gives no rights in Switzerland
• Two routes in — protection comes only from a Swiss IPI registration or a Madrid designation of Switzerland
• Two independent clocks — the Swiss right and any EUTM renew on separate dates under separate rules
• The home right — for a Lausanne company the Swiss mark is primary, not a bolt-on to the EUTM

The 10-year Swiss term and the unusual 12-month renewal window

A Swiss trademark lasts ten years from the filing date under Article 10 of the Trade Mark Protection Act (MSchG) and renews for further ten-year periods indefinitely. The renewal window is where Switzerland departs from most of Europe: a Swiss mark can be renewed in the last twelve months before expiry — a full year — not the six months an EU filer expects. For a mixed portfolio that difference is a trap, because the EUTM sitting beside the same brand opens its window only six months out.

Miss the expiry date and a six-month grace period follows, during which the mark can still be renewed on payment of the fee plus a late surcharge. The Swiss renewal fee is a flat CHF 550 for the ten-year term — there is no per-class renewal pricing — and the grace-period surcharge is CHF 50. Because the IPI reviews its schedule periodically, we confirm the live figures before every payment. The discipline for a Lausanne owner is to use the generous twelve-month Swiss window on its own terms, and never to assume the shorter EU window applies to the Swiss right as well.

• Term — ten years from the filing date under MSchG Art. 10, renewable without limit
• Window — the last twelve months before expiry, a full year, unusually long for Europe
• Grace period — six months after expiry on payment of the fee plus a CHF 50 surcharge
• Fee — a flat CHF 550 for the ten-year renewal, no per-class pricing, confirmed live before paying

Switzerland opposes after registration, and cancels non-use quickly

Switzerland, like Sweden, registers a mark first and opens the opposition period afterwards. Once a registration is published on Swissreg, third parties have three months to file an opposition, with a fee of CHF 800. That post-registration order means a Lausanne owner’s own new mark is open to challenge in the three months after grant, and the owner equally has only three months to oppose a conflicting Swiss registration once it appears — a different calendar logic from the pre-grant opposition the EUIPO runs.

On non-use, a Swiss mark becomes vulnerable after five years without genuine use. Since 1 January 2017, the IPI offers a simplified administrative cancellation procedure for non-use — faster and cheaper than the courts — which any party can bring. For the IOC, the international sports federations, and the EPFL spin-outs that cluster around Lausanne, each holding marks they may not yet use across every class they registered, that streamlined route makes an unused Swiss mark easier to attack. The trademark docketing Lausanne owners need therefore carries a five-year use horizon beside each Swiss renewal, with dated proof of Swiss use kept ready.

• Post-registration opposition — three months from publication on Swissreg, with a CHF 800 fee
• Two-sided risk — your new Swiss mark can be opposed, and you have only three months to oppose a rival
• Five-year non-use — a Swiss mark unused for five years is vulnerable to cancellation
• Simplified IPI cancellation — the administrative non-use route since 1 January 2017 makes an unused mark easier to attack

The end of the 1892 convention: German use no longer saves a Swiss mark

One recent change reshaped Swiss non-use docketing and still catches owners out. For 130 years, an 1892 convention between Switzerland and Germany let use of a mark in one country count as use in the other — so a Swiss registration could be kept alive by genuine use in Germany, and vice versa. Germany gave notice to terminate it, and the convention ended effective 31 May 2022, in the wake of the Court of Justice of the EU’s decision in the joined cases C-720/18 and C-721/18.

The consequence is concrete. From 1 June 2022, use in Germany no longer preserves a Swiss mark; the IPI will not count German acts of use after 31 May 2022 (use before that date still counts). A Lausanne company that quietly relied on its German market to support a Swiss registration it was not actively using in Switzerland is now exposed to the five-year non-use clock on that Swiss right. We flag any mark that may have leaned on the old convention and reset its use horizon to genuine Swiss use, because a renewal paid on time means nothing if the mark has become revocable underneath it.

• The old rule — the 1892 Swiss-German convention let use in one country preserve the mark in the other
• Terminated 31 May 2022 — following CJEU cases C-720/18 and C-721/18, the convention ended
• New exposure — German use after 31 May 2022 no longer saves a Swiss mark; genuine Swiss use is now required
• Docket reset — any mark that relied on the convention has its non-use horizon re-based to Swiss use

Lausanne’s sports federations and EPFL spin-outs as trademark owners

Lausanne is an unusually brand-intensive city for its size. It is the Olympic Capital — home of the International Olympic Committee since 1915 — and around fifty international sports federations are headquartered in Canton Vaud, with the Court of Arbitration for Sport also seated here and UEFA just along the lake in Nyon. These bodies are among the most prolific and most defended trademark owners in the world, holding event names, emblems and the Olympic marks across dozens of classes and dozens of countries. Their Swiss registrations are the home base of global brand programmes, and a lapse is unthinkable.

The other engine is EPFL, the Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, which anchors the Lake Geneva “Health Valley” cluster of hundreds of medtech and life-science companies. EPFL spin-outs file early, protect a scientific brand in Switzerland and the EU, and scale into Madrid markets as they commercialise — the same multi-clock pattern as a Delft or Malmö deep-tech firm, but with the Swiss national right always sitting outside the EUTM. Both profiles, the century-old federation and the three-year-old spin-out, need the same thing: a docket that treats the Swiss mark as a first-class right on its own calendar.

• Olympic Capital — the IOC and around fifty international sports federations in Canton Vaud are heavyweight, heavily defended mark owners
• Global brand bases — event names, emblems and the Olympic marks span many classes and countries from a Swiss home registration
• EPFL Health Valley — medtech and life-science spin-outs file early and scale Swiss, EU and Madrid rights
• One discipline — federation or spin-out, the Swiss mark is tracked as a first-class right, never an afterthought

How PerspireIP runs a Lausanne trademark docket

We start by separating the Swiss clock from the EU clock explicitly. For every brand we confirm whether Switzerland is protected by a Swiss national registration, a Madrid designation, or — a dangerous gap — nothing but an EUTM that stops at the border. We pair each Swiss mark with any EUTM and any Madrid IR, confirm each renewal date on its own office’s calendar, and record which right protects Switzerland, so the home market is never left exposed by a portfolio built around the EU filing.

From there we run a living docket that surfaces every deadline early: the Swiss renewal with its twelve-month window, six-month grace and flat CHF 550 fee; the separate EUTM and WIPO renewals; the five-year non-use horizon, re-based to Swiss use after the 1892 convention ended; and the three-month post-registration opposition fuse. The trademark docketing Lausanne owners rely on confirms IPI, EUIPO and WIPO fees against the live schedules before every payment, keeps each matter confidential, and works alongside your Swiss or European trademark attorney as a specialist docketing partner. Send us the register extract and we return a clean, reconciled Lausanne docket with every clock mapped and dated.

• Border check — confirm Switzerland is covered by a Swiss or Madrid right, never left to an EUTM that stops at the frontier
• Reconciliation — each Swiss mark paired with its EUTM and Madrid IR, with the Switzerland-protecting right recorded
• Renewal calendar — the twelve-month Swiss window, six-month grace and flat CHF 550 fee alongside the separate EU and WIPO dates
• Non-use discipline — the five-year horizon re-based to Swiss use after the 1892 convention’s termination
• One point of control — IPI, EUIPO and WIPO deadlines managed centrally, independent of a stale address

IP Landscape & Resources in Lausanne

Key intellectual-property authorities and venues relevant to Lausanne:

• Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI / IGE) — the Swiss national office in Bern that registers and renews Swiss trademarks on a ten-year filing-date clock with a twelve-month renewal window, runs the post-registration opposition and the simplified non-use cancellation, and publishes registrations on Swissreg
• WIPO — Madrid System — administers the Madrid Protocol; a Lausanne brand can protect Switzerland through a Madrid designation, and a Swiss-based international registration renews centrally at WIPO in Geneva on its own ten-year clock
• EUIPO — the EU Intellectual Property Office in Alicante; an EU trademark covers the 27 member states only and gives no protection in Switzerland, so it renews on a clock entirely separate from the Swiss right
• Swissreg — Swiss trademark register — the IPI's public register where Swiss trademark registrations are published, starting the three-month post-registration opposition window

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