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

Where the in­ven­tion has been made avail­able to the pub­lic in the six months pri­or to the ap­plic­a­tion date or pri­or­ity date, this dis­clos­ure does not form part of the state of the art when it is due to, or a con­sequence of:²¹

a.

an evid­ent ab­use in re­la­tion to the pat­ent ap­plic­ant or his leg­al pre­de­cessor; or

b.

the fact that the pat­ent ap­plic­ant or his leg­al pre­de­cessor has dis­played the in­ven­tion at an of­fi­cial or of­fi­cially re­cog­nised in­ter­na­tion­al ex­hib­i­tion fall­ing with­in the terms of the Con­ven­tion on In­ter­na­tion­al Ex­hib­i­tions of 22 Novem­ber 1928²², and he has de­clared the fact at the time of fil­ing and has pro­duced suf­fi­cient sup­port­ing evid­ence in due time.