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

¹ The FO­CBS shall de­tain goods if the con­sign­ment is small and:

a.

if, as a res­ult of an ap­plic­a­tion for as­sist­ance in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 86b para­graph 1, it has grounds to sus­pect that goods in­ten­ded to be brought in­to or taken out of the Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory in­fringe a pat­ent val­id in Switzer­land; and

b.

an ap­plic­a­tion for the de­struc­tion of small con­sign­ments (Art. 86b para. 2 let. b) has been sub­mit­ted.

² It may trans­fer re­spons­ib­il­ity for con­duct­ing the fur­ther pro­ced­ure to the IPI.

³ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall provide the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er of the goods with no­ti­fic­a­tion of the sus­pi­cion and of the de­tained goods and in­form the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er that the goods will be des­troyed if he does not ex­pressly ob­ject to the de­struc­tion with­in ten work­ing days of re­ceiv­ing this no­ti­fic­a­tion.

⁴ If the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er ex­pressly ob­jects to the de­struc­tion with­in the time lim­it spe­cified in para­graph 3, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall no­ti­fy the ap­plic­ant ac­cord­ingly. The fur­ther pro­ced­ure shall be gov­erned mu­tatis mutandis by Art­icles 86c para­graphs 3 and 4, 86d, 86e and 86k.

⁵ If the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er agrees to the de­struc­tion or does not give an opin­ion with­in the time lim­it re­ferred to in para­graph 3, the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall des­troy the goods at the ap­plic­ant’s ex­pense no earli­er than three months after the no­ti­fic­a­tion spe­cified in para­graph 3 or hand them over to the ap­plic­ant for de­struc­tion if the ap­plic­ant has re­ques­ted this in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 86b para­graph 3. Claims for dam­ages by the ap­plic­ant against the de­clar­ant, hold­er or own­er are ex­cluded.

⁶ The com­pet­ent au­thor­ity shall provide the ap­plic­ant with in­form­a­tion about the quant­ity and type of the goods des­troyed in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 5 and about the senders, wheth­er in­side or out­side Switzer­land.