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

¹ If the per­son un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion pleads the nullity of the pat­ent as a de­fence, the court may al­low him an ap­pro­pri­ate time lim­it with­in which to file a nullity ac­tion, giv­ing ap­pro­pri­ate no­tice of the pen­alty for fail­ure to do so; if the pat­ent has not been ex­amined with re­gard to nov­elty and in­vent­ive step and if the court has any doubt as to the valid­ity of the pat­ent, or if the per­son un­der in­vest­ig­a­tion has provided prima facie evid­ence that the de­fence of nullity of the pat­ent ap­pears jus­ti­fied, the court may al­low the in­jured party an ap­pro­pri­ate peri­od with­in which to file an ac­tion for de­clar­a­tion of the valid­ity of the pat­ent, like­wise giv­ing ap­pro­pri­ate no­tice of the pen­alty for fail­ure to do so.¹⁹¹

² Where the ac­tion is raised with­in the stated peri­od, the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings shall be sus­pen­ded un­til a fi­nal de­cision on the ac­tion has been is­sued; the lim­it­a­tion peri­od for pro­sec­u­tion is sus­pen­ded dur­ing this time.

³ …¹⁹²