Trade Marks: Trends And Developments 2022

Introduction

In the past year, leading decisions were issued in Switzerland that helped in clarifying fundamental questions in Swiss trade mark law and contributed to legal certainty. In particular, two decisions were rendered by the Swiss Supreme Court (SSC) that dealt with absolute grounds for refusal and buttressed the trend in Switzerland to align Swiss trade mark law with the laws of the EU and Switzerland's neighbouring countries. One of these decisions concerns the protracted legal dispute regarding the three-dimensional trade mark of the Nespresso coffee capsule that finally ended after ten years with a decision of the SSC declaring the trade mark null and void due to technical necessity (SSC decision of 7 September 2021, 4A_61/2021).