vom 28. April 1977 über die internationale Anerkennung der Hinterlegung von Mikroorganismen für die Zwecke von Patentverfahren

In Switzerland we have a long tradition in regard to protection of trade secrets. Therefore, different provisions ruling trade secrets can be found in manifold legal fields and laws as will be shown under question 4, e.g. in contract law, in unfair competition law or in criminal law (see also I. Meitinger, Der Schutz von Geschäftsgeheimnissen im globalen und regionalen Wirtschaftsrecht, 25.). At the same time this means that, in Switzerland, we do not have one main provision containing a general definition of a trade secret valid in all legal fields.

The Swiss Copyright Act (URG) provides that the holder of copyright in a work has the exclusive right inter alia to copy the work (art. 10, par. 2, lit. a URG), to disseminate the work (art. 10, par. 2, lit. b URG) and to make the work available (art. 10, par. 2, lit. c URG). By providing services such as website hosting, internet access, search or Web 2.0 services to customers or users who infringe these rights, ISPs may also infringe these rights, at least indirectly.