Hello everyone, 

The Federal Court of Switzerland has handed down the reasons for its decision on the appeal on 8 April. Against what PANArt had communicated in the past weeks, the Federal Court did not confirm that the “Hang”  is copyright protected. The highest Swiss court rather referred the case back to the Court of Berne and said that the first instance court should first decide the case entirely, also on the question which instruments should fall into the scope of protection of the copyright which the Court of Berne had assumed. Only after this question has been answered for each of the 500+ instruments which are subject of the case, the Federal Court will review the entire case again. This will probably still take some time.

This means that it is still possible that the Federal Court of Switzerland will ultimately come to the conclusion that the “Hang” is not copyrighted at all.

In the meantime, the German Federal Court of Justice has also handed down its judgment on the copyright protection of “Birkenstock” sandals, in which it concluded that these sandals are not copyright protected. One of the main reasons for this decision was that design features which were developed based on technical considerations do not contribute (and do not take part) in copyright protection. We all know that the four main features of handpans (the lense shape, the tone fields, the dome and the port) were all developed under technical aspects. Therefore, we are still confident that we can eventually convince the Courts of Switzerland that these features cannot be monopolized via copyright.

As the case now goes back to the Commercial Court in Berne, which will decide on the infringement issue. We are able to submit new evidence and arguments. We expect the Court to set a date for the next hearing somewhere next year. After that a decision will follow, which is then again possible to appeal at the Federal Court of Switzerland.

High costs of court and lawyers are involved in the process. It would be a tremendous help to our endeavours if we get contributions. You can still do that here. Or make a direct contribution:

Stichting Handpan Community United
IBAN: NL62BUNQ2049174195

Bank name: Bunq B.V.

BIC/SWIFT: BUNQNL2AXXX