History of the Firm
"It’s not enough just to jump on the bandwagon of history, you also have to know what the destination is."
(Edith Cresson)
What can we tell you about the history of Hepp Wenger Ryffel?
Hepp Wenger Ryffel has two historic roots: firstly the firm founded by Dieter Hepp in 1974, and secondly the firm of Kirchhofer & Ryffel – one of the first patent attorneys’ offices in Switzerland – which was founded in 1880.
Do any documents still exist from those distant times? We ourselves were very interested by that question. The statutory periods for retaining documents ran out long ago, of course. We went down into the archive and in fact found a few well-known and very old trademarks in our books (actual books!); here are a few examples:
A few things have altered since then. For instance – though they aren’t the only thing – the prices in comparison with this (unfortunately undated) price list from Kirchhofer & Ryffel, which presumably originates from the very early part of the 1900s:
However, one thing has remained unchanged: the desire to enhance over the long term our clients’ ability to create value and their competitive position by way of the skilful use of intellectual property rights. Today, we still don’t settle for anything less. That is: