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The capacity of an exclusive licence holder to instigate legal proceedings in the case of the violation of copyright by a third party has been a controversial issue for some time. Capacity to instigate proceedings in this case means the ability of a licence holder, in their own name, to claim a ban and the ceasing of the infringement of copyright. The matter has finally been clarified by the Federal Court in a decision delivered on 29 August 2007. The judges in Switzerland’s supreme court have upheld that, in its current version, the federal legislation on copyright and neighbouring rights of 9...

In a ruling of 4 October 2007, the Swiss Bundesverwaltungsgericht (Federal Administrative Court - BVG) decided that the words “ Depuis 1775 ” constituted advertising and therefore, as part of a trademark, should not appear in a reference to a sponsor (case no. A-563/2007). In autumn 2006, Publisuisse SA (a subsidiary of the Schweizerische Radio- und Fernsehgesellschaft – SRG) refused to allow the company Montres Breguet SA to continue to appear as a sponsor of its programmes using its logo and the words “ Montres Breguet – Depuis 1775 ”. The opinion that the reference to the company’s year of foundation...

In December 1996 the Swiss ambassador to the United States drew up a “strategic document”, classified as “confidential”, concerning possible strategies with regard the compensations due to Holocaust victims for unclaimed assets deposited in Swiss banks. The report was sent to the Federal Department of Foreign Affairs in Bern and to a limited list of other persons. Martin Stoll, a journalist working for the Sonntags-Zeitung, also obtained a copy of this document, probably as a result of a breach of professional confidence by one of the persons who had received a copy of this...

The agreement on Switzerland’s participation in the MEDIA programme, concluded on 26 October 2004 between Switzerland and the European Union (EU) as part of the second round of bilateral negotiations, reached the end of its term on 31 December 2006 (see IRIS 2006-5: 9). Further to the negotiations launched in March 2007, the Swiss Confederation and the EU signed, on 11 October 2007, the renewal of this agreement so that Switzerland would be able to participate fully in the 2007 MEDIA programme. The text of the new agreement is only very slightly different to that of the agreement concluded in 2004....

In April 2007, the Swiss radio and television broadcasting company (SRG SSR) and the partner associations in the Audiovisual Pact concluded a test agreement defining the principles of a new video-on-demand offer on the Internet. The Audiovisual Pact was for the first time in 1996 and regularly renewed since then, and is intended to guarantee the continuity of production activities by reinforcing collaboration between SRG SSR and the Swiss cinematographic and audiovisual industry (see IRIS 2005-8: 10). The resources of the Audiovisual Pact are allocated to financing the production of fictional films,...