IP Lawyers in Switzerland

Usually yes, because the cheapest mistakes are the ones you avoid before filing anything. A strategy identifies what actually carries value in your business — code, data, brand, know-how, an invention — and sets the order and the markets in which to protect it. It also tells you what NOT to protect, which is often the bigger saving. From there, registrations and contracts are execution.

A trademark protects the name and signs your customers buy under, in the countries where you register it — and it is what gives you leverage when someone copies your brand or registers a lookalike domain. It is worth clearing the name before you commit to it, because a rebrand after launch costs far more than a search. We handle the search, the national or international registration, and the enforcement that follows.

In Switzerland and the EU, software is protected by copyright as soon as it is written; patents are only available in narrow circumstances where a technical effect is involved. In practice the protection that matters most is contractual and organisational: making sure your company actually owns the code, that trade secrets are handled as secrets, and that what you license out is defined precisely.

Not automatically you. Contractor work, research collaborations and university spin-outs each have their own default rules, and a university licence in particular can quietly constrain how you commercialise later. We check where the rights sit today, secure ownership or a workable licence in the underlying agreements, and negotiate the licence terms so your product roadmap is not limited by paperwork signed years earlier.

Much of it is fixed-scope — an IP strategy, a trademark registration, a licence agreement — so you know the cost before work starts. For open-ended or fast-moving mandates we offer pre-paid hours or a legal-team subscription. We scope it on a free call; no billable-hour targets.