VSP
VSP - ASCPI - ASPTA

VSP - ASCPI - ASPTA

Verband Schweizerischer Patent- und Markenanwälte

Association Suisse des Conseils en Propriété Industrielle

Association of Swiss Patent and Trademark Attorneys

Privacy Policy

Privacy Policy

With this privacy policy, we inform you about the processing of personal data in connection with our activities and operations, including our website under the domain name vsp.ch. In particular, we explain for what purposes, how, and where we process which personal data. We also inform about the rights of individuals whose data we process.

For certain or additional activities and operations, we may publish further privacy policies or other information regarding data protection.

1. Contact Addresses

The data controller within the meaning of data protection law is:

VSP - ASCPI - ASPTA
Association of Swiss Patent and Trademark Attorneys

Giesshübelstrasse 45
8045 Zurich
Switzerland

This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

In individual cases, third parties may be responsible for processing personal data, or joint responsibility with third parties may exist. Upon request, we will gladly inform affected persons about the respective responsibility.

2. Terms and Legal Bases

2.1 Terms

Data subject: Natural person about whom we process personal data.
Personal data: Any information relating to an identified or identifiable natural person.
Special categories of personal data: Data concerning trade union, political, religious, or philosophical beliefs and activities; data about health, intimacy, or belonging to an ethnic group or race; genetic data; biometric data that uniquely identifies a natural person; data about criminal or administrative sanctions or prosecutions; and data about social assistance measures.
Processing: Any handling of personal data regardless of the means or procedures used, such as querying, matching, adjusting, archiving, storing, reading, disclosing, obtaining, collecting, deleting, revealing, arranging, organizing, saving, modifying, distributing, linking, destroying, and using personal data.

2.2 Legal Bases

We process personal data in accordance with Swiss law, in particular the Federal Act on Data Protection (FADP) and the Ordinance on Data Protection (DPO).

3. Nature, Scope, and Purpose of Processing Personal Data

We process the personal data necessary to carry out our activities and operations permanently, user-friendly, securely, and reliably. The processed personal data may include browser and device data, content data, communication data, metadata, usage data, master data including inventory and contact data, location data, transaction data, contract data, and payment data. Personal data may also include special categories of personal data.

We also process personal data received from third parties, obtained from publicly accessible sources, or collected during the exercise of our activities and operations, as far as such processing is permitted.

We process personal data with the consent of the data subjects where necessary. In many cases, we may process personal data without consent, for example, to fulfill legal obligations or protect overriding interests. We may also ask for consent even when it is not strictly required.

We process personal data only for as long as necessary for the respective purpose. We anonymize or delete personal data, especially in consideration of statutory retention and limitation periods.

4. Disclosure of Personal Data

We may disclose personal data to third parties, have it processed by third parties, or process it jointly with third parties. Such third parties may include specialized service providers whose services we use.

We may disclose personal data, in connection with our activities and operations, to banks and other financial service providers, authorities, educational and research institutions, consultants and lawyers, advocacy groups, IT service providers, cooperation partners, credit and business information agencies, logistics and shipping companies, marketing and advertising agencies, media, parent, sister, and subsidiary companies, organizations and associations, social institutions, telecommunications companies, insurers, and payment service providers.

5. Communication

We process personal data to communicate with individuals as well as with authorities, organizations, and companies. This particularly includes data provided by the data subject when contacting us, for example by postal mail or email. Such data may be stored in an address book or similar aids.

Third parties transmitting data about other persons to us are obliged to independently ensure the data protection of these data subjects. They must ensure that such data is accurate and may be transmitted.

We use selected services from suitable providers to enable and improve communication with individuals and other communication partners. Such services may also manage and process data of data subjects beyond direct communication.

6. Data Security

We take appropriate technical and organizational measures to ensure data security commensurate with the respective risks. Our measures especially ensure confidentiality, availability, traceability, and integrity of processed personal data, although absolute data security cannot be guaranteed.

Access to our website and other digital presence is secured by transport encryption (SSL/TLS, particularly HTTPS). Most browsers warn when visiting a website without transport encryption.

Our digital communication is subject — as any digital communication in principle — to mass surveillance without cause or suspicion by security authorities in Switzerland, Europe, the United States (USA), and other countries. We have no direct influence on the processing of personal data by intelligence services, police authorities, or other security agencies. We also cannot exclude that a data subject may be specifically monitored.

7. Personal Data Abroad

We generally process personal data in Switzerland. However, we may disclose or export personal data to other countries, especially to process or have it processed there.

We may disclose personal data to any country on Earth and elsewhere in the universe, provided that the applicable law there ensures an adequate level of data protection according to the decision of the Swiss Federal Council.

We may disclose personal data to countries whose law does not ensure adequate data protection if other reasons guarantee suitable protection, especially based on standard contractual clauses or other suitable safeguards. Exceptionally, we may export personal data to countries without adequate or suitable data protection if special data protection prerequisites are met, such as the explicit consent of the data subject or a direct connection to the conclusion or execution of a contract. Upon request, we gladly inform data subjects about any guarantees or provide copies of guarantees.

8. Rights of Data Subjects

8.1 Data Protection Claims

We grant data subjects all claims under applicable law. In particular, data subjects have the following rights:

  • Access: Data subjects may request confirmation whether we process personal data about them and, if so, which data. They will also receive information necessary to assert their data protection claims and ensure transparency, including the processed personal data, purpose of processing, storage duration, possible disclosures or exports of data to other countries, and the origin of the personal data.
  • Correction and Restriction: Data subjects may correct inaccurate data, complete incomplete data, and request restrictions on processing.
  • Right to express their own view and human review: In cases of decisions based solely on automated processing with legal effects or significant impact (automated individual decisions), data subjects may present their own position and request human review.
  • Deletion and Objection: Data subjects may request deletion ("right to be forgotten") and object to processing with future effect.
  • Data Portability: Data subjects may request the handover or transfer of their data to another controller.

We may postpone, restrict, or refuse the exercise of these rights within legally permissible limits. We may inform data subjects of any requirements for exercising their data protection rights. For example, we may refuse access citing confidentiality obligations, overriding interests, or protection of others. We may also refuse deletion, especially citing statutory retention obligations.

We may occasionally charge fees for exercising rights, informing data subjects beforehand about any costs.

We are obliged to identify data subjects making requests with appropriate measures. Data subjects are obliged to cooperate.

8.2 Legal Protection

Data subjects have the right to enforce their data protection claims through legal means or to file a complaint or report with a data protection supervisory authority.

The data protection supervisory authority for private controllers and federal bodies in Switzerland is the ederal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC).

9. Use of the Website

9.1 Cookies

We may use cookies — both first-party cookies and third-party cookies — from services we use. Cookies are data stored in the browser, not necessarily limited to traditional text cookies.

Cookies may be stored temporarily as session cookies or permanently for a defined period. Session cookies are deleted when the browser closes. Permanent cookies have a specific storage duration. Cookies allow recognizing a browser on return visits, e.g., to measure website reach. Permanent cookies may also be used for online marketing.

Cookies can be disabled, restricted, or deleted in browser settings at any time. Browsers often allow automatic deletion and management of cookies. Without cookies, our website may not be fully available. We request explicit consent to use cookies, at least as required by applicable law.

For cookies used in success and reach measurement or advertising, many services offer a general opt-out via AdChoices (Digital Advertising Alliance of Canada), Network Advertising Initiative (NAI), YourAdChoices (Digital Advertising Alliance) or Your Online Choices (European Interactive Digital Advertising Alliance, EDAA).

9.2 Logging

We may log the following details for each access to our website and digital presence, if transmitted: date and time including time zone, IP address, access status (HTTP status code), operating system including interface and version, browser including language and version, visited subpage including data transferred, last visited webpage in the same browser window (referrer).

These logs, which may contain personal data, are necessary to maintain our digital presence permanently, user-friendly, and reliably, and to ensure data security, also with third-party help.

9.3 Tracking Pixels

We may embed tracking pixels (web beacons) in our digital presence. These are usually small, invisible images or JavaScript scripts automatically loaded upon access. Tracking pixels can collect at least the same data as logging.

10. Notifications and Messages

10.1 Success and Reach Measurement

Notifications and messages may contain web links or tracking pixels to measure if a message was opened and which links were clicked. This tracking may be personal data-based. We need this for success and reach measurement to send notifications effectively, user-friendly, permanently, securely, and reliably according to recipients’ needs and habits.

10.2 Consent and Objection

You must generally consent to the use of your email address and other contact details unless the use is permitted for other legal reasons. To obtain verifiable consent, we may use the "double opt-in" procedure. In this case, you will receive a message with instructions for confirming your consent a second time. For evidence and security purposes, we may log the obtained consents, including IP address and timestamp.

You can generally object at any time to receiving notifications and messages, such as newsletters. By doing so, you may also object to the statistical tracking of usage for performance and reach measurement. Necessary notifications and communications in connection with our activities and operations remain unaffected by such an objection.

11. Third-Party Services

We use services from specialized third-party providers to conduct our activities and operations in a sustainable, user-friendly, secure, and reliable manner. Such services allow us, among other things, to embed functions and content into our website. Due to technical requirements, these services at least temporarily collect users’ IP addresses when content is embedded.

For necessary security-related, statistical, and technical purposes, third parties whose services we use may process data related to our activities in aggregated, anonymized, or pseudonymized form. This may include performance or usage data required to provide the respective service.

We particularly use:

11.1 Digital Infrastructure

We use services from specialized third-party providers to obtain the necessary digital infrastructure related to our activities. This includes hosting and storage services from selected providers.

We particularly use:

11.2 Appointment Scheduling

We use services from specialized third-party providers to schedule appointments online, such as for meetings. In addition to this privacy policy, the respective providers’ terms of use or privacy policies may apply.

11.3 Fonts

We use services from third parties to embed selected fonts as well as icons, logos, and symbols into our website.

We particularly use:

12. Website Extensions

We use website extensions to enable additional functionalities. These may come from selected third-party providers or be operated on our own digital infrastructure.

We particularly use:

13. Performance and Reach Measurement

We aim to measure the success and reach of our activities and operations. In this context, we may also assess the effectiveness of third-party links or examine how different sections or versions of our digital presence are used (A/B testing). Based on the results, we may fix errors, strengthen popular content, or make improvements.

For performance and reach measurement, user IP addresses are usually collected. These IP addresses are generally shortened (“IP masking”) to comply with the principle of data minimization via pseudonymization.

Cookies may be used, and user profiles may be created as part of performance and reach measurement. Such profiles may include pages visited or content viewed on our digital platform, screen or browser window size, and the user’s approximate location. These profiles are generally pseudonymized and are not used to identify individual users. Some third-party services — where users have accounts — may link usage of our site to their respective account or profile.

We particularly use:

14. Use of AI for Translations

We would like to inform you that we use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to translate texts on our website. This allows us to provide content in multiple languages to support our international users. Please note that machine translations may not always be perfect, and we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or inaccuracies.

We are continuously working to improve the quality of our machine translations. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the translations, please feel free to contact us. You can reach us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

By including this notice, users are informed about how translations on your website are generated and the efforts you are making to improve their quality. Make sure this section is easy to find, preferably through numbered listings or a clear heading.

15. Final Notes on This Privacy Policy

We created this privacy policy using the privacy policy generator von Daten­schutz­partner .

We may update this privacy policy at any time. We will inform users of such updates in an appropriate manner, particularly by publishing the current version on our website.