Swiss Patent Attorney study guide
Swiss Patent Attorney · Work through your exam, one topic at a time.
The Swiss Patent Attorney Examination is the qualifying assessment for people who intend to practise as patent attorneys in Switzerland, typically candidates who already hold a technical or scientific degree and are training inside a patent attorney firm or an industrial IP department. It is administered in the Swiss context by the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI), the federal body responsible for patents, and it is delivered in the national languages rather than in English. The exam is built around four broad areas of competence: patent law at national and international level; examination practice and the IPI's own guidelines; drafting and prosecuting applications, including claim structure, priority and amendments; and the wider legal and policy questions that shape patent practice, such as entitlement, employee inventions and the interface with international procedures. Preparation is normally a mixture of structured self-study of the legislation and the IPI's published guidelines, close reading of decisions, and sustained practice in drafting and answering office actions under time pressure. The Swiss Patent Attorney study guide has 4 sections and about 2,064 words.
01Patent law (national and international)
This domain tests the substantive law that surrounds a Swiss patent: the PatG and its ordinance (PatV), the EPC as it applies to Switzerland since 1 July 2008, the PCT and the Paris Convention. Questions usually combine a national validity point with a treaty point, so state which instrument governs before you analyse.
553 words, about 3 min02Patent examination practice and IPI guidelines
This domain examines how the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI/IGE) actually handles an application: what it examines, what it deliberately leaves alone, which periods and fees it enforces, and how refusals are reviewed. Most marks here are lost on procedure, not on doctrine.
538 words, about 3 min03Patent application drafting and prosecution
This domain tests the craft: converting a client disclosure into a claim set that survives Art. 83, 84 and 123(2) EPC, handling priority, and prosecuting before the EPO and, where relevant, the IPI.
474 words, about 2 min04Patent-related legal and policy matters
This domain covers the law and policy around the patent: ownership and employee inventions, contracts, supplementary protection, compulsory licences, enforcement structures and Switzerland's position in European patent policy. It rewards precise statutory knowledge more than argument.
499 words, about 2 min