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Privacy Policy

We also protect your data

By using our website, you agree to our privacy policy. As we attach great importance to the protection of your privacy, we show you below how we treat your personal data and ensure its security, our use of cookies, etc.

 

1. Principle

The Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI) attaches great importance to the protection of your privacy. This statement sets out our privacy policy, in other words the processing of personal data collected through our website or our online services, or more generally, in the context of the services we provide.


We collect and process your personal data with the utmost care and in compliance with the applicable legal provisions; their processing is limited to what is strictly necessary and occurs for the sole purposes described in this declaration. We keep your personal data only for the duration necessary for the provision of our services or for the duration provided for by law. In close collaboration with our hosts, we make every effort to protect our databases from external intrusions, losses, misuse and falsification.

This statement is based on the European Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Although the GDPR is an EU regulation, it is of great importance to us. Swiss data protection law is strongly influenced by European law, and companies outside the EU or EEA are required, in certain cases, to comply with the GDPR.

2. Delegated Data Protection Service

The Legal Department General Law, Designs and Implementation of Law is responsible for compliance with the applicable data protection provisions. You can contact us with any questions relating to our privacy policy at the following address:


Federal Institute of Intellectual Property
Law & International Affairs Division
Legal Department General Law, Designs and Implementation of Law
Stauffacherstraße 65/59g
3003 Bern

R+I_Allgemeines_Recht@ipi.ch

 

3. Collection and processing of personal data

We mainly process the personal data that we collect in the context of the execution of laws in the field of intellectual property, in particular through the administration of industrial property rights (patents, brands, designs and topographies), management of the register of patent attorneys and monitoring of copyright management societies. We also process personal data in the context of our information services (patent and technology searches) and our course and training offer.


To the extent permitted by law, we also collect certain data from publicly available sources (e.g. debt register, land register, commercial register, press, internet) or obtain it from public authorities and other third parties for the conclusion or performance of contracts with you or for the registration of your titles of protection in the register.


For the conduct of teleconferences, online meetings, videoconferences or webinars (hereinafter “online meetings”), we use the “Zoom” service with an on-site infrastructure (“on premise”). The data processed in this context are: user name, general information about service preferences, information about each user's device, network and internet connection, e.g. ex. IP address(es), MAC address, other devices (UDID), device type, operating system type and version, client version, information related to the use of Zoom products or other interactions with Zoom products (“Usage Information”), other information that the User uploads, makes available or creates using the Service as well as metadata used for the maintenance of the Service provided. As is often the case with this type of collaborative tool, other personal data may be exchanged between the IPI and the parties concerned, such as chat messages, images, files, audio recordings or video, contacts and metadata used for the maintenance of the service provided. When you participate in a “Zoom” online meeting without being registered, the data processed is limited to a minimum. The online meeting is only recorded on prior notice and in any case saved locally. You will find additional information on the processing of personal data by “Zoom” in la Confidentiality declaration du service.

 

4. Purposes of data processing and legal bases

We use the personal data collected by us mainly to examine, issue and administer industrial property rights (trademarks, patents and designs, topographies) and to maintain the register of patent attorneys. In addition, we use the data for the conclusion and performance of contracts with our customers and business partners, in particular in the area of our research services for our customers and when purchasing products or services. of our suppliers and subcontractors, and for the performance of our legal obligations in Switzerland and abroad. If you work for one of our customers or business partners, your personal data may also be affected.


We also process personal data about you and others to the extent permitted by law and insofar as we deem appropriate, in particular for the following purposes, in which we (and sometimes third parties) have a legitimate interest:

  • Information about offers, services, websites and other platforms on which we operate;

  • Communicating with third parties and processing their queries (e.g. job applications, media inquiries);

  • Control and optimization of needs analysis procedures for the purposes of a targeted approach to customers, but also the collection of personal data from publicly available sources for customer acquisition;

  • Publicity and information concerning our offers and our services (including the organization of events and the sending of the annual report) insofar as you have not objected to the use of your data (when we send you advertising because you are one of our customers, you can object to it at any time; you will then be placed on an advertising blocking list);

  • Market research, opinion polls, media monitoring;

  • Exercise of rights and defense in court in legal disputes and administrative proceedings;

  • Prevention and investigation of crime and other wrongdoing (e.g. conducting internal investigations, analyzing data to combat fraud);

  • Maintaining the proper functioning of our services, including the IT infrastructure, our websites and our other platforms;

  • Measures for the security of IT, buildings and installations as well as for that of our employees, other persons and assets belonging to us or entrusted to us (e.g. access control, visitor lists, network scans and messaging, recordings of telephone calls);

  • Conducting online meetings.

Insofar as you have given us your consent to process your personal data for specific purposes (e.g. registration for our newsletters or other inquiries via online forms on our website), we process your personal data within the framework and on the basis of this consent, unless there is another legal basis or other valid reasons. A given consent can be revoked at any time; however, this revocation will have no effect on data already processed.


When personal data is processed within the framework of the administration of industrial property rights, the law and the ordinance tell us what data to process and in what form. We are legally obliged to inform the public about the protection titles in force in Switzerland and about the personal data linked thereto.

 

5. Cookies, tracking and other technologies related to the use of our website

5.1.    Cookies and image elements
On our websites, we use "cookies" and other similar techniques to identify your browser or device. A cookie is a small file that is sent to your computer, or even saved automatically on your computer or mobile device, by the web browser you use when you visit our website. When you visit this same site again, we can recognize you, even if we do not know who you are. In addition to cookies which are used only during a session and which are deleted after you have visited the site ("session cookies"), cookies which allow user settings and other information to be saved for a certain period of time. (e.g. two years) may also be used (“permanent cookies”). However, you can configure your browser in such a way that it refuses cookies, saves them only for one session or deletes them in advance. Most browsers are pre-configured to accept cookies. We use permanent cookies to better understand how you use our offers and content. When you disable cookies, some features (e.g. language selection) may no longer work. In our newsletters and other marketing e-mails, we include, to the extent permitted, visible and invisible image elements which allow us, by consulting our servers, to determine if and when you have opened the e-mail in order to be able, in also in this case, to measure and better understand how you use our offers and adapt them to your needs. You have the option of blocking this process in your email program.


5.2 Newsletters and marketing emails
By using our websites and consenting to receive newsletters and other marketing emails, you agree to the use of these techniques. If you do not want this, you must configure your server or your e-mail program accordingly.


5.3 Google Analytics
We sometimes use Google Analytics on our websites. This is a third-party service which may be located in any country in the world (in the case of Google Analytics this is Google LLC in the United States, www.google.com) by which we can measure and evaluate the use of the site (based on non-personal information). For this purpose, permanent cookies created by the service provider are also used. We do not communicate any personal data to the service provider (who does not store any IP addresses), but the latter may track your use of the site, combine this information with data from other Internet pages which you have visited and which it also tracks. , and use this information for personal purposes (e.g. managing advertising). If you are registered with the service provider, the service provider also knows you. The processing of your personal data by the service provider is therefore its responsibility in accordance with its privacy policy. The service provider only tells us how our various websites are used (no personal information about you).


We have activated the anonymization of IP addresses, which means that the IP addresses of the users of our websites which are necessarily transmitted to the servers of Google Analytics are truncated automatically and as soon as possible (masking of the last octet of the address ).


For more information, cf. Google Marketing Platform.


5.4 Google reCaptcha
We sometimes use Google reCaptcha on our websites. This is a third party service which may be located in any country in the world (in the case of Google reCaptcha this is Google LLC in the United States) through which we can protect online forms on our website. Data processing is based on your consent. reCAPTCHA is used to check whether data on our websites (e.g. in a contact form) is entered by a person or an automated program. reCAPTCHA analyzes the behavior of the user for this purpose on the basis of various particularities. Cookies, set by the service provider, are also used for this purpose. The analysis starts automatically and runs entirely in the background, as soon as the visitor opens the website. Visitors are not notified that an analysis is taking place.


Google can analyze all the information on the form pages (in particular the IP address, the time spent by the user on the site or the mouse movements made by the user). The data collected during the analysis is transmitted to Google. The use of the reCaptcha service complies with confidentiality rules et aux google terms of service; for more information, cf. Google reCAPTCHA (in English).


5.5 Plugins
We also use social media plugins such as Facebook, Twitter, Xing or LinkedIn on our websites. You can visualize them generally with the corresponding symbols. We have configured these items to be disabled by default. If you activate them (by clicking on them), the data concerning your visit to our site will be transmitted to the operator of the social network, which may use them for its own needs. The processing of your personal data is then the responsibility of this operator in accordance with its privacy policy. It does not send us any information about you.

 

6. Transmission of data to third parties

Your personal data will not be passed on, sold or transferred in any other way to third parties, unless they are necessary for the execution of the contract or our legal obligations or you have expressly consented to this (e.g. for guarantee the security of our input forms on the website). The IPI may also transfer data to third parties insofar as it is required to do so by legal provisions or by administrative or judicial decision.


The recipients of this data are partly in Switzerland, but may be located abroad. If we transmit data to a country that does not offer adequate legal data protection, we ensure an appropriate level of protection through corresponding contracts or rely on the following exceptional cases: consent, performance of the contract, the establishment, exercise or defense of legal claims, overriding public interests, published personal data or the need to protect the integrity of the persons concerned.


The “Zoom” service used for online meetings is provided by a service provider in the United States; personal data may therefore also be processed in a third country. An adequate level of data protection is contractually guaranteed. Even with an on-premises infrastructure, user and meeting metadata and cloud recordings are managed in Zoom's public cloud. To complete the protective measures, the IPI has decided to configure Zoom in such a way that only data centers located in Switzerland and the EU are used for conducting online meetings.


You can at any time request information on the contractual guarantees mentioned from the authority indicated in ch. 2. However, we reserve the right to darken the delivered copies for reasons of data protection or confidentiality or to provide only extracts.


Under the law, anyone can consult the registers kept by us and therefore become a recipient of the personal data processed there. This also applies to consultation of the file from the moment the title of protection is entered in the register or the specification of the patent application is published. Under certain conditions, which are provided for by the respective ordinances, consultation of the file may be requested before this date.


The IPI may transmit, within the framework of legal provisions, data from registers and other documents such as patent application specifications, patent applications and search reports to international organizations (EPO, WIPO, EUIPO ) and other trademark or patent offices.

 

7. Duration of retention of personal data

We process and store your personal data for as long as necessary for the performance of our contractual and legal obligations or for the purposes pursued by the processing, i.e., for example, for the duration of a relationship commercial (preparation, execution and termination of a contract) and beyond this period in accordance with legal retention and documentation obligations. We may retain personal data for the period during which claims may be made against us and because we are required to do so by law or by legitimate business interests (e.g. for the purposes of evidence or documentation). The retention period of data within the framework of the administration of industrial property rights is regulated in the respective ordinances and amounts in principle to 5 years after the cancellation, withdrawal or rejection of the title of protection (trademarks, patents, designs, topographies).


We draw your attention to the fact that the data remain visible in our registers even after their deletion because these must also be able to provide information on past legal relationships. These data remain visible even after their deletion in Swissreg, the electronic publication organ of the IPI.

 

8. Data Security

We take appropriate technical and organizational security measures to protect your personal data from unauthorized access or improper use, such as the development of directives, training, solutions aimed at computer and network security, control and restriction of access, encryption of data carriers and transmissions, pseudonymization and controls.

 

9. Obligation to provide personal data

As part of our business relationship, you are required to provide us with the personal data that is necessary for the conclusion and management of a business relationship and the performance of any contractual obligation arising therefrom (in generally, you are under no legal obligation to provide us with data). Without this personal data, we are generally unable to enter into and perform a contract with you (or the entity or person representing you) or to comply with our legal obligations.

 

10. Profiling and automated decision making

Personal data is not subject to automated decision-making. No profiling is practiced with personal data.

 

11. Rights of the data subject

Within the framework of the data protection law applicable to you and insofar as its provisions provide for it (as in the case of the GDPR), you have a right to information, rights to rectification, the erasure, the limitation of the processing of your data, as well as the opposition to our processing of your data and the delivery of some of your data with a view to transmitting them to another entity (data portability) . Please take into account, however, that we reserve the right to apply the restrictions provided for by law, for example when we are obliged to store and process certain data, have an overriding interest in it (insofar as we can rely on it ) or need it to exercise our rights. If fees are applicable, we will notify you in advance. We have drawn your attention to your right to revoke your consent in ch. 4. Please note that exercising these rights may conflict with contractual agreements and may result in consequences such as early termination of a contract or the application of fees. In this case, we will inform you in advance unless this is stipulated by contract or provided for by law.

 

The exercise of such rights requires in principle that you prove your identity clearly (eg by means of a copy of your identity card if your identity is unclear or cannot be verified otherwise). To assert your rights, you can contact us at the address indicated in ch. 2.

 

Any person concerned also has the right to assert their claims in court or to lodge a complaint with the competent data protection authority. The competent data protection authority in Switzerland is the Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (http://www.edoeb.admin.ch).

 

12. Changes

We reserve the right to modify this privacy statement at any time without notice. The valid version is the one currently published on our website. When it seems appropriate, we will inform you by email or by any other appropriate means of the update of this statement.

  • Information You Collect.

  • How you collect the information.

  • Why you collect the information.

  • With whom do you share the information.

  • Where is the information stored.  

  • How long the information is kept.

  • How you protect information. 

  • Changes or Updates to the Privacy Policy.
     

Click herefor more detailed information on how to formulate your privacy policy.

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