CMS offers an unparalleled IP-service portfolio with expertise ranging from trademark matters to copyright/software-related technology disputes as well as patent law offered with a global network and high cost-efficiency.
The right brands will win the hearts and minds of your customers. The right patents will prevent others exploiting your technical ideas or provide a substantial barrier to market access. Copyright, software management, know-how and designs also play a vital role in your IP strategy and management. The IP landscape is constantly evolving, and so are we.
In today’s knowledge economy, a large part of the value of your business is based on intangible assets and goodwill. Your intellectual property plays a key role in obtaining a competitive advantage. A cohesive IP strategy, including both commercialisation and enforcement, will ensure you get maximum value from your portfolio.
Our Swiss IP team is widely-known for the high quality of its offering for clients, advising Switzerland-based and global clients on international IP-transactions and IP-litigation proceedings (coordinating with multiple entities abroad) and is the firm to go for international trademark or trade secrets prosecution matters as well as advise on cross-border advertisement campaigns. We have also considerable experience in software-related copyright matters and disputes as well as patent disputes.
When Experience Matters.
We focus on key sectors relevant to you such as life sciences, automotive, machinery, manufacturing, consumer products, financial services and TMC. This means you will get in-depth industry knowledge as well as legal expertise as part of our IP-legal services. If you are involved in a dispute, we can guide you through the litigation process, but we are also familiar with the sector-specific surrounding you are dealing with.
In particular our strengths lie in:
- software and online-platform-business: we advise a strong client base in the software and online-platform business regarding copyright & content matters, technology-protection, online-licensing, software development contracts as well as disputes and enforcement.
- corporate IP-transactions: we have fantastic experience in the legal assessment of intellectual property in the context of transactions. We regularly advise on technology-driven (software, know-how and patents) and brand (trademark) focused mergers and acquisitions in all industry sectors.
- IP development and transfer agreements: we advise clients regularly in connection with the drafting and enforcement of agreements for the development and/or transfer of intellectual property rights, especially research and development and license agreements.
- pharma patent litigation: our team has profound litigation experience in originator/generics cases.
- trademark protection and litigation: CMS Switzerland represents, maintains and enforces at present several hundred Swiss, foreign and international trademarks of clients of all industry sectors, some of which are well-known trademarks.
- advertisement: we regularly advise national and international clients of all industry sectors (e.g. food, hygiene products, financial services, sport outfitters, etc.) on a wide spectrum of aspects of advertisement law, including compliance with unfair competition law, product and labelling regulation and regulations on competitions and raffles.
Our main clients are:
- Barilla
- Designwerk Technologies AG
- Aon Schweiz AG
- Infopro Digital
- Mobile Health AG
- Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF)
- Talenthouse AG
- Better Cotton Initiative
- Teva Inc.
- nChain
Recent highlights of our work:
- Advising Aon Schweiz AG in a major software-licensing & copyright dispute and the contractual negotiation of a long-term settlement/licensing agreement with a major software provider.
- Advising international producers of consumer products on compliance of their sustainability claims in Switzerland.
- Advising Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation, established by the Financial Stability Board in June 2014, regarding the global protection of its trademarks and supporting GLEIF in the enforcement of its trademark rights against third party violations, including the negotiations of settlement agreements.
- Defending a Swiss public limited company against allegations of trademark and company name violations, among others based on the defense of forfeiture.
- Advising Infopro Digital in the acquisition process, in particular by reviewing all aspects of Bindexis' online-technology business (Intellectual Property Assessment of Technology and platform programming involved as well as IP-licensing, data protection and general commercial aspects of the online-business).
A Global Perspective.
With 450 specialist lawyers, scientists and patent attorneys across almost 40 countries, we can draw on a wealth of understanding and experience to meet your business needs – experience gained in acting for some of the world's best-known brands, from banks to tech and media companies, pharmaceuticals and major FMCG companies. We handle the full lifecycle of IP assets, in both contentious and non-contentious work. Whether you own IP or license it, we can help you maximize the value of assets in your portfolio.
We are looking forward to putting in place diverse, agile, cross-border teams of experts from all disciplines to serve your needs.
Find an expert
Social Media cookies collect information about you sharing information from our website via social media tools, or analytics to understand your browsing between social media tools or our Social Media campaigns and our own websites. We do this to optimise the mix of channels to provide you with our content. Details concerning the tools in use are in our privacy policy.