Federal Act
on Patents for Inventions
(Patents Act, PatA)¹

¹ The In­sti­tute shall pub­lish pat­ent ap­plic­a­tions:

a.

im­me­di­ately after the ex­piry of a peri­od of 18 months from the fil­ing date or, if pri­or­ity has been claimed, from the pri­or­ity date;

b.

at the re­quest of the ap­plic­ant, be­fore the ex­piry of the peri­od spe­cified in let­ter a.

² The pub­lic­a­tion shall con­tain the de­scrip­tion, the pat­ent claims and, if ap­plic­able, the draw­ings, as well as the ab­stract, provided it is avail­able for pub­lic­a­tion pri­or to com­ple­tion of the tech­nic­al pre­par­a­tions for pub­lic­a­tion, and if ap­plic­able, the re­port on the state of the art or the in­ter­na­tion­al-type search as spe­cified in Art­icle 59 para­graph 5. If the re­port on the state of the art or the in­ter­na­tion­al-type search as spe­cified in Art­icle 59 para­graph 5 is not pub­lished with the pat­ent ap­plic­a­tion, they shall be pub­lished sep­ar­ately.