Federal Act on the Protection of Designs
(Designs Act, DesA)

This Act pro­tects the design of products or parts of products that is char­ac­ter­ised, in par­tic­u­lar, by the ar­range­ment of lines, sur­faces, con­tours or col­ours or by the ma­ter­i­als used.

¹ A design is pro­tec­ted to the ex­tent that it is new and has in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter.

² A design is not new if an identic­al design which could be known to the circles spe­cial­ised in the rel­ev­ant sec­tor in Switzer­land has been made avail­able to the pub­lic pri­or to the fil­ing date or the pri­or­ity date.

³ A design does not have in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter if the over­all im­pres­sion it pro­duces dif­fers only in im­ma­ter­i­al fea­tures from a design that could be known to the circles spe­cial­ised in the rel­ev­ant sec­tor in Switzer­land.

The dis­clos­ure of a design may not be in­voked against the hold­er of the right (right hold­er) dur­ing the 12 months pre­ced­ing the fil­ing date or pri­or­ity date if:

a.

a third party has dis­closed the design in an ab­us­ive man­ner to the det­ri­ment of the en­titled per­son;

b.

the per­son en­titled has dis­closed the design him­self.

A design may not be pro­tec­ted if:

a.

the design filed is not in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 1;

b.

the design does not meet the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 2 at the time of fil­ing;

c.

the fea­tures of the design are dic­tated solely by the tech­nic­al func­tion of the product;

d.

the design in­fringes fed­er­al law or in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies;

e.

the design is con­trary to pub­lic policy or mor­al­ity.

¹ A design right is es­tab­lished on entry in the Design Re­gister (the Re­gister).

² Pro­tec­tion is for five years from the fil­ing date.

³ It may be ex­ten­ded for four peri­ods of five years each.

A design right be­longs to the per­son who first files the design.

¹ The per­son who has cre­ated the design, his or her suc­cessor in title or a third per­son whose right is based on oth­er leg­al grounds is en­titled to file the design.

² Where sev­er­al people have cre­ated the design to­geth­er, they are en­titled to file the design jointly un­less oth­er­wise agreed.

The pro­tec­tion of the design right in­cludes designs that have the same es­sen­tial fea­tures and thus pro­duce the same over­all im­pres­sion as a design already re­gistered.

¹ The design right con­fers on the right hold­er the right to pro­hib­it oth­ers from us­ing the design for com­mer­cial pur­poses. Use in­cludes, in par­tic­u­lar, man­u­fac­tur­ing, stor­ing, of­fer­ing, pla­cing on the mar­ket, im­port­ing, ex­port­ing and car­ry­ing in trans­it, as well as pos­ses­sion for any of these pur­poses.

^1bisThe right hold­er may pro­hib­it the im­port, ex­port and trans­it of com­mer­cially man­u­fac­tured goods even if this is for private pur­poses.⁴

² The right hold­er may also pro­hib­it third parties from par­ti­cip­at­ing in, en­cour­aging or fa­cil­it­at­ing such un­law­ful use.

Any per­son who makes a ref­er­ence to a re­gistered design on goods or busi­ness pa­pers without in­dic­at­ing the num­ber of the design right is ob­liged to provide the num­ber free of charge on re­quest.

Where there are sev­er­al right hold­ers, the rights provided for in Art­icle 9 ac­crue to them jointly un­less oth­er­wise agreed.

¹ The right hold­er may not pro­hib­it third parties from con­tinu­ing to use a design to the same ex­tent as pre­vi­ously where those parties have used the design in Switzer­land in good faith dur­ing the fol­low­ing peri­ods:

a.

be­fore the fil­ing date or pri­or­ity date;

b.

dur­ing the peri­od of de­fer­ment of the pub­lic­a­tion (Art. 26).

² The right of pri­or use may only be trans­ferred to­geth­er with the busi­ness.

¹ The right hold­er may not in­voke the re­gistered design against third parties who have used the design com­mer­cially in good faith in Switzer­land or who have made spe­cial pre­par­a­tions for that pur­pose between the last day of the time lim­it stip­u­lated for pay­ment of the fee for a fur­ther peri­od of pro­tec­tion and the day on which a re­quest for fur­ther pro­cessing (Art. 31) was filed.

² The right of par­al­lel use may only be trans­ferred to­geth­er with the busi­ness.

³ Any per­son claim­ing a right of par­al­lel use must pay the right hold­er ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion from the date on which the design right is re­vived.

¹ The right hold­er may trans­fer the design right in whole or in part.

² The trans­fer is only val­id if evid­enced in writ­ing, but it does not have to be entered in the Re­gister. It is only ef­fect­ive in re­la­tion to third parties who are act­ing in good faith once it has been entered in the Re­gister.

3 Un­til the trans­fer has been entered in the Re­gister:

a.

li­censees act­ing in good faith may dis­charge their ob­lig­a­tions to the former right hold­er;

b.

ac­tions un­der this Act may be brought against the former right hold­er.

1 The right hold­er may per­mit third parties to use the design right or in­di­vidu­al rights con­ferred by the design right either ex­clus­ively or non-ex­clus­ively.

2 The li­cence is entered in the Re­gister at the re­quest of one of the parties in­volved. It then be­comes bind­ing on any rights to the design sub­sequently ac­quired.

1 A design right may be sub­ject to usu­fruct or pledge.

2 Usu­fruct and pledges may only take ef­fect in re­la­tion to per­sons who ac­quire the design right in good faith if they are entered in the Re­gister. The entry is made at the re­quest of one of the parties con­cerned.

3 Pri­or to re­gis­tra­tion of a usu­fruct, li­censees act­ing in good faith may dis­charge their ob­lig­a­tions to the former right hold­er.

A design right can be sub­ject to com­puls­ory en­force­ment.

1 Any per­son who is party to an ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ced­ure un­der this Act but is not dom­i­ciled or does not have a re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land must des­ig­nate an ad­dress for ser­vice in Switzer­land un­less in­ter­na­tion­al law or the com­pet­ent for­eign body per­mits the au­thor­ity to serve doc­u­ments dir­ectly in the state con­cerned.

² The IPI is en­titled to de­clare to the com­pet­ent for­eign body that dir­ect ser­vice is per­mit­ted in Switzer­land in in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty mat­ters provided Switzer­land is gran­ted re­cip­roc­al rights.

1 A design is con­sidered to have been filed once an ap­plic­a­tion for re­gis­tra­tion has been sub­mit­ted to IPI. The ap­plic­a­tion must con­tain:⁶

a.

a re­quest for re­gis­tra­tion;

b.

a rep­res­ent­a­tion of the design suit­able for re­pro­duc­tion; if the rep­res­ent­a­tion does not ful­fil this re­quire­ment, the IPI will set a time lim­it with­in which the ap­plic­ant must rem­edy the de­fect.

2 The pre­scribed fee for the first peri­od of pro­tec­tion must also be paid with­in the time lim­it set by the IPI⁷.

3 If a two-di­men­sion­al design is filed for which a de­fer­ment of pub­lic­a­tion has been re­ques­ted un­der Art­icle 26, a spe­ci­men of the design may be filed in lieu of the rep­res­ent­a­tion. If design pro­tec­tion is to be main­tained bey­ond ex­piry of the de­fer­ment peri­od, a rep­res­ent­a­tion of the design suit­able for re­pro­duc­tion must first be sub­mit­ted to the IPI.

4 On pay­ment of a fee, a de­scrip­tion of the design con­tain­ing no more than 100 words may be in­cluded to ex­plain the rep­res­ent­a­tion of the design.

1 that be­long to the same product class un­der the Lo­c­arno Agree­ment of 8 Oc­to­ber 1968⁸ Es­tab­lish­ing an In­ter­na­tion­al Clas­si­fic­a­tion for In­dus­tri­al Designs may be filed as a mul­tiple ap­plic­a­tion.

2 The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may lim­it the size and weight of mul­tiple ap­plic­a­tions.

Fil­ing cre­ates a pre­sump­tion of nov­elty and in­di­vidu­al char­ac­ter as well as of the en­ti­tle­ment to file it.

1 If a design is duly filed first in an­oth­er Mem­ber State of the Par­is Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of In­dus­tri­al Prop­erty of 20 March 1883⁹, or with ef­fect in such a Mem­ber State, the ap­plic­ant or suc­cessor in title may claim the date of first fil­ing for the fil­ing of the same design in Switzer­land, provided the fil­ing in Switzer­land takes place with­in six months of the date of first fil­ing.

² The first fil­ing in a state that grants re­cipro­city to Switzer­land has the same ef­fect as the first fil­ing in a Mem­ber State of the Par­is Con­ven­tion for the Pro­tec­tion of In­dus­tri­al Prop­erty.

¹ Any per­son claim­ing a right of pri­or­ity must file a de­clar­a­tion of pri­or­ity with the IPI. The IPI may re­quest the sub­mis­sion of a pri­or­ity doc­u­ment.

² The right to claim pri­or­ity is for­feited if the time lim­its and form­al re­quire­ments laid down by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil are not ob­served.

3 Re­gis­tra­tion of pri­or­ity is merely a pre­sump­tion in fa­vour of the right hold­er.

1 A design filed in ac­cord­ance with the leg­al pro­vi­sions shall be entered in the Re­gister.

2 The IPI shall dis­miss an ap­plic­a­tion for re­gis­tra­tion if the form­al re­quire­ments as set out in Art­icle 19 para­graphs 1 and 2 are not ful­filled.

³ It shall re­ject an ap­plic­a­tion for re­gis­tra­tion if it is evid­ent that an ab­so­lute ground for re­fus­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 4 let­ters a, d or e ex­ists.

4 All amend­ments con­cern­ing the valid­ity of the design right or the right to the design shall also be entered in the Re­gister. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may provide for the re­gis­tra­tion of fur­ther par­tic­u­lars such as dis­pos­al re­stric­tions ordered by the courts or com­puls­ory en­force­ment au­thor­it­ies.

1 On the basis of the entries in the Re­gister, the IPI shall pub­lish the par­tic­u­lars of the design provided for in the Or­din­ance and a re­pro­duc­tion of the filed design.

² The IPI de­term­ines the or­gan of pub­lic­a­tion.

1 The ap­plic­ant may re­quest in writ­ing that pub­lic­a­tion be de­ferred for up to a max­im­um of 30 months from the fil­ing or pri­or­ity date.

2 Dur­ing the peri­od of de­fer­ment, the right hold­er may re­quest im­me­di­ate pub­lic­a­tion at any time.

3 The IPI will keep the filed design secret un­til ex­piry of the de­fer­ment peri­od. Secrecy will be main­tained in­def­in­itely if the ap­plic­a­tion is with­drawn be­fore the ex­piry of the de­fer­ment peri­od.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may au­thor­ise the IPI to reg­u­late elec­tron­ic com­mu­nic­a­tion in ac­cord­ance with the gen­er­al pro­vi­sions on the ad­min­is­tra­tion of fed­er­al justice.

² The dossier and the files may be main­tained and stored in elec­tron­ic form.

³ The Re­gister may be main­tained in elec­tron­ic form.

⁴ The IPI may make its data­base ac­cess­ible, par­tic­u­larly on­line, to third parties; it may de­mand re­mu­ner­a­tion for this ser­vice.

⁵ The IPI’s pub­lic­a­tions may be pro­duced in elec­tron­ic form; the elec­tron­ic ver­sion, however, is the au­thor­it­at­ive ver­sion only if the data is pub­lished ex­clus­ively in elec­tron­ic form.

1 Any per­son may in­spect the Re­gister, ob­tain in­form­a­tion on its con­tents and re­quest ex­tracts from it; Art­icle 26 re­mains re­served.

² In ad­di­tion, any per­son may in­spect the files of a re­gistered design. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may re­strict the right of in­spec­tion only if man­u­fac­tur­ing or trade secrets or oth­er over­rid­ing in­terests so re­quire.

³ Ex­cep­tion­ally, the files may be in­spec­ted pri­or to re­gis­tra­tion, in­so­far as the re­quire­ments and scope of pro­tec­tion (Art. 2−17) are not af­fected. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

The IPI shall can­cel a re­gis­tra­tion in whole or in part if:

a.

the right hold­er re­quests the can­cel­la­tion;

b.

the re­gis­tra­tion is not re­newed;

c.

the pre­scribed fees are not paid;

d.

the re­gis­tra­tion is de­clared in­val­id in a fi­nal court de­cision; or

e.

the term of pro­tec­tion un­der Art­icle 5 has ex­pired.

Any per­son who des­ig­nates Switzer­land in an in­ter­na­tion­al fil­ing of an in­dus­tri­al design will thereby ob­tain the pro­tec­tion of this Act as if the fil­ing had taken place in Switzer­land. Where the pro­vi­sions of the Hag­ue Agree­ment of 6 Novem­ber 1925¹² Con­cern­ing the In­ter­na­tion­al De­pos­it of In­dus­tri­al Designs are more fa­vour­able than the pro­vi­sions of this Act for the pro­pri­et­or of the in­ter­na­tion­al fil­ing, the pro­vi­sions of the Agree­ment will take pre­ced­ence.

The amount of the fees to be paid un­der this Act and its or­din­ance as well as the terms of pay­ment are gov­erned by the Fee Reg­u­la­tions of 28 April 1997¹³ of the Swiss Fed­er­al In­sti­tute of In­tel­lec­tu­al Prop­erty (IGE-GebO).

¹ If the ap­plic­ant or the right hold­er fails to ob­serve a time lim­it re­quired by the IPI, he may file a re­quest with the lat­ter for fur­ther pro­cessing.¹⁴

2 The re­quest must be filed with­in two months of re­ceiv­ing no­tice of the ex­piry of the time lim­it, and at the latest with­in six months of ex­piry of the said time lim­it. With­in this time peri­od, the omit­ted act must be car­ried out in full and the fee for fur­ther pro­cessing paid.

3 If the IPI ac­cepts the re­quest for fur­ther pro­cessing, the situ­ation is re­stored to that which would have res­ul­ted from car­ry­ing out the act with­in the time lim­it.

⁴ Fur­ther pro­cessing is ex­cluded in the case of fail­ure to ob­serve the time lim­its:

a.

for fil­ing a re­quest for fur­ther pro­cessing;

b.

for claim­ing pri­or­ity.

Any per­son who can demon­strate a leg­al in­terest may ap­ply to the court for a de­clar­at­ory judge­ment as to wheth­er a right or leg­al re­la­tion­ship gov­erned by this Act does or does not ex­ist.

1 Any per­son who claims a great­er right to a design may bring an ac­tion for as­sign­ment of the design right against the right hold­er.

2 If the right hold­er is act­ing in good faith, the ac­tion must be brought against him or her with­in a peri­od of two years from pub­lic­a­tion of the design.

³ If the as­sign­ment is ordered, li­cences or oth­er rights gran­ted to third parties in the in­ter­ven­ing peri­od lapse; however, if they have used the design com­mer­cially in Switzer­land in good faith or have made spe­cial pre­par­a­tions to do so, these third parties are en­titled to be gran­ted a non-ex­clus­ive li­cence.

⁴ Any claims for dam­ages re­main re­served.

1 A right hold­er whose right has been in­fringed or threatened may re­quest the court:

a.

to pro­hib­it an im­min­ent in­fringe­ment;

b.

to rem­edy an ex­ist­ing in­fringe­ment;

c.

to re­quire the de­fend­ant to provide in­form­a­tion on the ori­gin and ex­tent of un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured items in his pos­ses­sion and to name the re­cip­i­ents and dis­close the ex­tent of any dis­tri­bu­tion to com­mer­cial cus­tom­ers.

2 Ac­tions brought un­der the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁶ for dam­ages, sat­is­fac­tion and hand­ing over of profits in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing agency without au­thor­ity re­main re­served.

³ An ac­tion for per­form­ance may be in­sti­tuted only after the design has been entered in the Re­gister. Claims for dam­ages may be made ret­ro­act­ively from the time at which the de­fend­ing party ob­tained know­ledge of the con­tent of the ap­plic­a­tion for re­gis­tra­tion.

⁴ Any per­son who holds an ex­clus­ive li­cence is en­titled to bring a sep­ar­ate ac­tion ir­re­spect­ive of the re­gis­tra­tion of the li­cence in the Re­gister un­less this is ex­pressly ex­cluded in the li­cence agree­ment. Any li­censees may join an in­fringe­ment ac­tion in or­der to claim their own dam­ages.

The court may or­der the for­feit­ure and sale or de­struc­tion¹⁷ of the un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured items or equip­ment, devices and oth­er means that primar­ily serve their man­u­fac­ture.

Any per­son re­quest­ing pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures may, in par­tic­u­lar, re­quest that the court or­ders meas­ures to:

a.

se­cure evid­ence;

b.

es­tab­lish the ori­gin of items un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured;

c.

pre­serve the ex­ist­ing state of af­fairs;

d.

pro­vi­sion­ally en­force claims for in­junct­ive re­lief and rem­edy.

The court may or­der, at the re­quest of the suc­cess­ful party, that the judge­ment be pub­lished at the ex­pense of the oth­er party. The court de­term­ines the form and ex­tent of pub­lic­a­tion.

The courts shall provide the IPI with full of­fi­cial cop­ies of the fi­nal judg­ments free of charge.

¹ On com­plaint from the right hold­er, any per­son who wil­fully in­fringes the design right of an­oth­er is li­able to a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing one year or a mon­et­ary pen­alty if he:²¹

a.

un­law­fully uses the design;

b.

par­ti­cip­ates in, en­cour­ages or fa­cil­it­ates such un­au­thor­ised use;

c.

re­fuses to provide the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity with in­form­a­tion on the ori­gin and ex­tent of un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured items in his pos­ses­sion and to name the re­cip­i­ents and dis­close the ex­tent of any dis­tri­bu­tion to com­mer­cial cus­tom­ers.

² If the of­fend­er acts for com­mer­cial gain, he shall be pro­sec­uted ex of­fi­cio. The pen­alty is a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing five years or a mon­et­ary pen­alty. The cus­todi­al sen­tence shall be com­bined with a mon­et­ary pen­alty.²²

Acts un­der Art­icle 9 para­graph 1^bisare not crim­in­al of­fences.

Art­icles 6 and 7 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974²⁴ on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law ap­ply to of­fences com­mit­ted with­in a busi­ness by sub­or­din­ates, agents or rep­res­ent­at­ives.

1 If the per­son un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion in­sti­tutes civil pro­ceed­ings for the nullity or non-in­fringe­ment of the design right, the court may sus­pend crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

2 If the per­son un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion claims in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings that the design right is in­val­id or has not been in­fringed, the court may set an ap­pro­pri­ate time lim­it for him to as­sert his claims in civil pro­ceed­ings.

3 The lim­it­a­tion peri­od for pro­sec­u­tion is sus­pen­ded dur­ing the stay of pro­ceed­ings.

The court may or­der the for­feit­ure and sale or de­struc­tion of the un­law­fully pro­duced items or equip­ment, devices and oth­er means that primar­ily serve their man­u­fac­ture, even in the event of an ac­quit­tal.

Pro­sec­u­tion is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the can­tons.

¹ The Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion is au­thor­ised to no­ti­fy the right hold­er of a filed design if there is any sus­pi­cion that un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured items may im­min­ently be brought in­to or taken out of Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory.²⁶

² In such cases, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion is au­thor­ised to with­hold the items for three work­ing days in or­der that the right hold­er may file an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 47.

¹ If the right hold­er or a li­censee of a filed design en­titled to ini­ti­ate pro­ceed­ings has clear in­dic­a­tions that un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured items may im­min­ently be brought in­to or taken out of Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory, he may re­quest the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion in writ­ing to re­fuse the re­lease of the items.²⁷

² The per­son fil­ing the ap­plic­a­tion (the ap­plic­ant) must provide all rel­ev­ant in­form­a­tion avail­able to him that is ne­ces­sary for the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion’s de­cision; this in­cludes a pre­cise de­scrip­tion of the items.

³ The Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion makes the fi­nal de­cision on the ap­plic­a­tion. It may charge a fee to cov­er the ad­min­is­trat­ive costs.

¹ If the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion, based on an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 47 para­graph 1, has reas­on­able grounds to sus­pect that cer­tain items in­ten­ded to be brought in­to or taken out of Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory have been un­law­fully man­u­fac­tured, then it shall no­ti­fy both the ap­plic­ant and the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the items ac­cord­ingly.²⁸

² The Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall with­hold the items in ques­tion for a max­im­um of ten work­ing days from the time of no­ti­fic­a­tion pur­su­ant to para­graph 1, so that the ap­plic­ant may ob­tain pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures.

3 Where jus­ti­fied by cir­cum­stances, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion may with­hold the items in ques­tion for a max­im­um of ten ad­di­tion­al work­ing days.

¹ While the items are be­ing with­held, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion is au­thor­ised to hand over or de­liv­er to the ap­plic­ant, on re­quest, samples for ex­am­in­a­tion or to per­mit the ap­plic­ant to in­spect the items be­ing with­held.

² The samples are col­lec­ted and de­livered at the ex­pense of the ap­plic­ant.

³ They must be re­turned after the ex­am­in­a­tion has been car­ried out, if this is reas­on­able. If samples are re­tained by the ap­plic­ant, they are sub­ject to the pro­vi­sions of cus­toms le­gis­la­tion.

¹ At the same time as no­ti­fic­a­tion is made in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 48 para­graph 1, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall in­form the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the items of the pos­sible han­dover of samples or the op­por­tun­ity to in­spect them in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 48a para­graph 1.

² The de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er may re­quest to be present at the in­spec­tion in or­der to safe­guard his man­u­fac­tur­ing or trade secrets.

³ The Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion may re­fuse to hand over samples on reasoned re­quest from the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er.

¹ When mak­ing an ap­plic­a­tion un­der Art­icle 47 para­graph 1, the ap­plic­ant may sub­mit a writ­ten re­quest to the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion to des­troy the items.

² If an ap­plic­a­tion for de­struc­tion is made, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall no­ti­fy the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the items ac­cord­ingly as part of the no­ti­fic­a­tion made un­der Art­icle 48 para­graph 1.

³ The ap­plic­a­tion for de­struc­tion does not res­ult in an ex­ten­sion to the time lim­its for ob­tain­ing pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures un­der Art­icle 48 para­graphs 2 and 3.

¹ The de­struc­tion of the items re­quires the con­sent of the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er.

² Con­sent is deemed to be giv­en if the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er does not ex­pressly ob­ject to the de­struc­tion with­in the time lim­its un­der Art­icle 48 para­graphs 2 and 3.

Be­fore the de­struc­tion of the items, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall re­move samples and hold them in safe­keep­ing as evid­ence in any ac­tions for dam­ages.

¹ If the de­struc­tion of the items proves to be un­jus­ti­fied, the ap­plic­ant is ex­clus­ively li­able for the res­ult­ant loss.

² If the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er has giv­en ex­press writ­ten con­sent for the de­struc­tion, no claims for dam­ages may be made against the ap­plic­ant if the de­struc­tion later proves to be un­jus­ti­fied.

¹ The de­struc­tion of the items is car­ried out at the ex­pense of the ap­plic­ant.

² The de­cision about the costs of col­lect­ing and safe­keep­ing samples un­der Art­icle 48e are de­cided by the court in con­nec­tion with the as­sess­ment of claims for dam­ages in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 48f para­graph 1.

¹ Where it is an­ti­cip­ated that with­hold­ing the items may lead to a loss be­ing in­curred, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion may make with­hold­ing of the items de­pend­ent on the ap­plic­ant provid­ing them with an ac­count­ab­il­ity state­ment. As an al­tern­at­ive to this state­ment and where jus­ti­fied by cir­cum­stances, the Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion may re­quest the ap­plic­ant to provide ap­pro­pri­ate se­cur­ity.

² The ap­plic­ant is li­able for any losses in­curred from with­hold­ing the items and from col­lect­ing the samples if pre­lim­in­ary meas­ures are not ordered or prove to be un­foun­ded.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall en­act the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions.

The re­peal and amend­ment of the cur­rent law is reg­u­lated in the An­nex.

1 Re­gistered designs are sub­ject to the new Act from the date it enters in­to force. An ap­plic­a­tion for a fourth peri­od of pro­tec­tion must be sub­mit­ted to the IPI, to­geth­er with a rep­res­ent­a­tion of the design suit­able for re­pro­duc­tion.

2 Designs already filed but not yet re­gistered at the time of entry in­to force of this Act shall be sub­ject to the pre­vi­ous law up to the time of their re­gis­tra­tion.

3 Re­gistered designs that are sealed at the time of entry in­to force of this Act shall re­main sealed un­til the end of the first peri­od of pro­tec­tion.

4 Art­icle 35 para­graph 4 ap­plies only to li­cence agree­ments that have been con­cluded or con­firmed after the entry in­to force of this Act.

¹ This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.

² The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the com­mence­ment date.

Com­mence­ment date: 1 Ju­ly2002³⁷