Renaming a company / Question 3
The old name: can someone else take it?
The commercial register no longer protects it: the protection of a business name rests on its entry, and after the rename the old name is no longer entered. As a trademark, the old name stays the company’s for as long as the mark is registered, renewed and used. A watch tells you when someone files a name close to it.
Free account · One name watched every day
01 / The business name
Protection follows the entry.
A business name entered in the commercial register and published in the SHAB is for the exclusive use of the party that registered it. (OR Art. 956)
A company’s name must be clearly distinct from the names of companies and cooperatives already entered in Switzerland. (OR Art. 951) Once the rename is entered, the old name is no longer one of them.
Start a free watch on your name02 / The trademark
A mark lasts while it is kept.
A trademark registration runs ten years from filing and can be renewed for ten years at a time; the IPI’s renewal fee is CHF 550. (MSchG Art. 10; IPI, Renewing protection)
A registration that is not renewed is cancelled by the IPI. (MSchG Art. 35(b))
Start a free watch on your name03 / Use it or lose it
Five years without use.
A mark not used for an uninterrupted five years can no longer be asserted, unless there are proper reasons for the non-use. (MSchG Art. 12(1))
From five years after the opposition period, anyone can ask the IPI to cancel a mark for non-use. (MSchG Art. 35a)
Start a free watch on your name04 / In Antevo
Watch the old name for new filings.
A free Antevo Trademark account watches one name: it checks the registers every day for new filings close to it and flags them, with a similarity score and who filed it. Where Antevo holds the publication date, it gives the opposition deadline from each office’s own statute.
Start a free watch on your nameSources
Where this comes from.
The count behind the figures and the primary sources for every legal point. Intelligence, not advice: nothing here is legal advice, and a trademark attorney or your lawyer confirms whether a new name is free and what a rename means for your contracts.