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

¹ The pat­ent may not be in­voked against any per­son who, dur­ing the fol­low­ing peri­ods, has com­mer­cially used an in­ven­tion in good faith in Switzer­land or who has made spe­cial pre­par­a­tions for that pur­pose:

a.

between the last day of the time lim­it stip­u­lated for pay­ment of a pat­ent re­new­al fee (…¹¹⁰) and the day on which a re­quest for fur­ther pro­cessing (Art. 46a) or a re­quest for re-es­tab­lish­ment of rights (Art. 47) was filed;

b.

between the last day of the pri­or­ity peri­od (Art. 17 para. 1) and the day on which the pat­ent ap­plic­a­tion was filed.¹¹¹

² This pri­or user right is gov­erned by Art­icle 35 para­graph 2.

³ Any per­son claim­ing a pri­or user right based on para­graph 1 let­ter a must pay the pro­pri­et­or of the pat­ent ap­pro­pri­ate com­pens­a­tion from the date on which the pat­ent is re­vived.

⁴ In the event of dis­pute, the court shall de­cide on the ex­ist­ence and on the ex­tent of the rights claimed by pri­or use and on the amount of com­pens­a­tion to be paid in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3.