Logo design for a business — copyright, trade marks, and the files you need

Logo design for a business ends in two things: a file, and the rights to that file. The file is the easy part. Under Switzerland's Copyright Act, the assignment of ownership of a copy — the files you receive — does not, on its own, include the right to exploit the copyright behind it. Without a clear assignment, the rights stay with the designer. Elements from Canva's library can't be used as part of a trade mark, because Canva's own licence forbids it. A mark generated entirely by AI may carry no copyright protection at all, in which case copyright gives you no way to stop someone else copying it.

That's why the route you take to a logo — a designer, a generator, or Canva — is a decision about rights, not only about looks and budget. It decides what has to be in the contract with a designer, whether the mark can be registered as a trade mark with the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property (IPI), and which files you'll get for a favicon, Google and your business profiles. Filing a Swiss trade mark online for up to three classes costs, net of the e-filing discount, CHF 350 by our own arithmetic on the IPI's fee table — our walkthrough is further down.

Colours, typography, clear space and minimum size are the rules of the system the logo works inside; we cover those in brand guidelines.

Three routes to a logo, and what each one gives you in rights

Each of the three common routes gives you a file, but only one can give you exclusive economic rights to the mark — and only if you sign the right contract.

• A designer or studio. If the logo has "individual character" under Art. 2(1) of the Copyright Act, it's a protected work, and the rights belong to its creator. They pass to you only through a contract that assigns them; without one, the rights stay with the designer, and what you may do with the files depends on what was agreed.
• A logo generator (e.g. Looka). You pay for the right to download and use a finished design. The terms don't speak directly to a transfer of copyright or to exclusivity, and symbols may come from third parties.
• Canva. Library elements (icons, illustrations, templates) come under a non-exclusive licence, and you can't use them as part of a trade mark. Fonts are the exception.

On top of that sits a cross-cutting question: if a mark was generated entirely by AI, there may be no copyright in it at all, whatever tool it was made in.

A logo from a designer: what the contract must say

Commissioning a logo from a designer or studio buys you work and a file; you buy the economic rights separately, and only when the contract meets a few specific conditions. The rules below come from the Copyright Act (URG/LDA, SR 231.1), Fedlex consolidation 1 July 2025.

Whether a logo is a protected work at all. Art. 2(1) protects "literary and artistic intellectual creations with individual character, irrespective of their value or purpose." Not every logo meets that bar, and it's judged case by case. If it does, protection begins on creation — no registration needed — and the author is, under Art. 6, "the natural person who has created the work." The designer is the author, not the client who commissioned the work.

A file is not the rights. Art. 16(1) allows copyright to be assigned, but Art. 16(3) is explicit: "the assignment of the ownership of a copy of a work does not include the right to exploit the copyright, even in the case of an original work." A folder of SVG and PNG files is a copy. The rights are a separate subject of the contract.

No fixed form — but writing is still worth it. Unlike some jurisdictions, Art. 16 of the Swiss Copyright Act prescribes no written form for an assignment of rights. That doesn't make an informal agreement safe: if a dispute ever comes up, you'll have to prove what was agreed. Getting the assignment in writing is our own advice for proof, not a legal requirement; whether a court would read in some other formal requirement in a specific dispute is something we haven't researched and aren't claiming either way.

Partial rights stay with the creator unless agreed otherwise. Art. 16(2) states that assigning one right doesn't automatically include other partial rights "unless such was agreed." So a contract that assigns, say, print use, doesn't hand you web use or the right to modify the mark unless it says so explicitly — list every use you need.

Changes and derivative versions. Even with a broad assignment, Art. 11 gives the author a say in whether, when and how the work may be altered or used as the basis for a derivative work. A simplified favicon version, or a refresh a few years down the line, is exactly this kind of change — get consent for it in the contract itself.

Employee versus freelancer. Art. 17 gives an employer rights over computer programs created by an employee in the course of their job — but that provision is limited to software; it isn't extended to logos. A logo from a freelancer or a studio, commissioned outside an employment contract, isn't covered by any statutory transfer — you need an assignment contract either way.

From this, a short list of clauses worth checking before you sign:

1. The contract says it assigns the economic rights, not just "grants a licence" or "hands over the design".
2. The work is described precisely: the mark, with the variants you're receiving as files.
3. The uses are spelled out explicitly: print, digital reproduction, web, use on goods and services, advertising, distribution of copies.
4. There's consent for derivative works and later changes (Art. 11) or an assignment of the right to authorise them.
5. Payment covers every use you've listed.
6. (Our own recommendation, not a requirement of the Act.) The designer confirms the work contains no elements a third party holds rights to, such as icons from a non-exclusively licensed library.
7. The contract is in writing, even though the Act doesn't require it — for proof, not because the law demands it.

How to brief a designer in the first place — purpose, audience, constraints — is covered in the project brief.

A free logo: Canva and generators

A free logo can be made in a few minutes, but the tools' own licences directly limit what you can do with it afterwards. The sharpest limit concerns trade marks.

Canva. The Canva Content License Agreement (read 2 October 2026; the page states no effective date) defines "Content" as its library of photos, icons, illustrations, video, audio, fonts and templates. Point 9, among the banned uses of both free and paid Content, lists using "any of the Content as part of a trade-mark, design-mark, trade-name, business name or service mark (excluding fonts)". The same point bans claiming you authored the Content or hold exclusive rights to it.

In practice, a logo built from a Canva library icon, illustration or template can't, under the licence, serve as a trade mark — and the licence is non-exclusive either way: free Content comes under a "perpetual, non-exclusive" licence, paid Content under a non-exclusive licence for use in a single project. The same element can end up in someone else's logo. Canva also reserves the right to "cancel or change" licences (point 1), and point 12 grants no rights or warranties over trade marks and logos that appear within free Content. At the same time, the Terms of Use, dated 19 August 2026, list a logo among the things you can design in Canva. A tool for designing a logo, and a licence to use it as a trade mark, are two different things.

If you use Canva's AI features, the AI Product Terms, dated 26 June 2026 apply. Under them, "you own your Output" in your relationship with Canva — except for output that modifies or includes licensed library Content. The same terms note outputs "may not be unique", and other users may receive similar results. The ownership clause splits rights between you and Canva "to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law" — it doesn't create copyright where the law doesn't grant it (see the next section), and doesn't guarantee your mark is one of a kind.

Looka. Looka's Terms, last updated 29 March 2019 and governed by Ontario law, state that to download or use a design outside the service, "you must pay the Fee." Once paid, you have no right to the session's other designs or to using individual elements separately. The terms recommend checking elements don't infringe third-party rights, and say symbols from The Noun Project are used "AT YOUR OWN RISK." They also acknowledge that some fonts and symbols may be third-party licensed. There's no clause transferring copyright, and none promising exclusivity on a paid design — the terms only speak to a right to use it.

The takeaway: free and cheap tools are fine for a sketch, a name test, or a placeholder mark for the first few months. If you're planning to register a trade mark, the mark can't rest on library elements whose licence rules that out.

A logo from an AI generator: does anyone hold rights to it

A mark generated entirely by AI may carry no copyright protection, whatever the tool's terms say about "ownership" of the output. The most detailed treatment comes from the United States; Switzerland's position is set out directly by its own IP institute.

The US Copyright Office's report, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 2, dated 29 January 2025, finds that protection "does not extend to purely AI-generated material" — material generated solely by AI, or where a human didn't control the creative elements. Prompts alone, with current technology, "do not alone provide sufficient control." What can be protected is the human contribution visible in the result: creative selection, arrangement or edits, assessed case by case. This is US law and doesn't bind a Swiss court.

In Switzerland, the Federal Institute of Intellectual Property's FAQ "AI and copyright", linked from the IPI blog, 16 September 2026, states: "In Switzerland, only works created by humans can be protected by copyright. If someone uses ChatGPT merely as a tool, but also performs a creative act, then the output can be protected… However, if the creative act is performed by ChatGPT, based on an ordinary prompt, then it has not come from a human and therefore the output is not protected by copyright." This matches Art. 6 of the Copyright Act — only a natural person is an author — applied directly to AI output. The same FAQ warns that users remain responsible for infringing output even without knowing it, and recommends reading the AI tool's own terms, which "may prohibit the commercial use of the output." The IPI blog adds that "there is no comprehensive AI-specific legislation in Switzerland"; following a parliamentary motion (24.4596 Gössi), the IPI is drafting a copyright bill, due for public consultation "by the end of 2026" per the FAQ's own wording.

The practical consequence: if there's no copyright in a mark, you can't use copyright to stop someone else copying something similar. If you use AI, document your own contribution — selections, edits, the final layout. Protection for the mark itself, separate from copyright, comes through registering a trade mark, covered next.

Trade-mark registration: the IPI

A trade mark is a separate protection for the sign that identifies your goods or services, independent of whether the logo is a protected work — but exclusive rights only exist once it's registered, and only in the classes you file for. Fees come from the IPI's cost-and-fees page ("Status per 1 July 2024"), under the Trade Mark Protection Act (MSchG/LPM, SR 232.11), Fedlex consolidation 1 July 2025:

• Filing fee, protection for ten years: CHF 450; an e-filing discount of CHF 100; a class surcharge of CHF 100 from the fourth class on; expedited examination CHF 400; opposition CHF 800; cancellation CHF 800; renewal CHF 550 (another 10 years); a late-renewal surcharge of CHF 50; further processing CHF 100.
• Our own arithmetic, not printed on the IPI's page as such: electronic filing, up to three classes = CHF 450 − CHF 100 = CHF 350; each further class adds CHF 100.

On timing, the IPI publishes its processing times: "seemingly straightforward applications" are examined "within six working days"; everything else, "generally within 2 months" after the filing fee is paid; expedited examination guarantees registration or an objection letter within one month. All of it comes with "depends on the individual case".

Under the Trade Mark Protection Act, a mark lasts 10 years from filing (Art. 10) and renews for further 10-year periods. The Swiss procedure runs the opposite way round from some other jurisdictions: registration happens first, and third parties can oppose it "within three months of publication of the registration" (Art. 31) — opposition comes after registration, not before it.

Search tools named on the IPI's own pages: Swissreg (Swiss and international marks with effect in Switzerland), TMview and Madrid Monitor. Nice-classification goods and services classes are the same international system used elsewhere — 45 classes in total.

An EU trade mark is a separate, territorial protection: it covers the EU, not Switzerland, so an EUIPO filing doesn't substitute for a Swiss one if your market is here. Note also that the EUIPO's SME Fund is explicitly for "EU-based" SMEs — it isn't available to a Swiss-based business, whatever its size.

How to design a business logo, step by step

Order matters, because the most expensive mistakes — colliding with someone else's mark, and missing out on the rights — only surface at the end if you haven't checked for them at the start. The sequence below follows from what's covered above.

1. Settle who the brand is for. Who the customer is, what they need, and who they compare you against — covered in business model. The character of the mark follows from this, not the other way round.
2. Check the name before you commission a mark. Zefix and Swissreg are the Swiss mechanism, alongside TMview and Madrid Monitor for international coverage.
3. Plan the variants. A primary and simplified version, colour and monochrome, positive and negative — what variants a system actually needs is covered in brand guidelines.
4. Test the mark at a small size. Google accepts a favicon from as small as 8×8 pixels, and a Facebook avatar is cropped to a circle — a mark that doesn't hold up under those conditions needs a simplified version.
5. Write the designer's brief. Purpose, audience, constraints and a list of carriers — details in the project brief.
6. Collect the files in the set covered in the next section.
7. Sign the rights-assignment contract, in writing even though the Act doesn't require it, with the clauses from the contract section above.
8. Consider registering a trade mark with the IPI, in the classes you actually operate in.

Logo files, favicon and sizes across platforms

The minimum file set is a vector and a raster version, in colour and monochrome, positive and negative, in RGB for screen and CMYK for print. Public institutions that publish their logos ship them the same way: the European Commission, for one, offers its logo in versions "developed for print material (CMYK) and digital material (RGB)". For a small business, that translates to: a vector file (SVG, PDF or AI), a transparent-background PNG, colour and single-colour versions, positive and negative, RGB for screen and CMYK for print.

Favicon on Google. Google Search Central (updated 28 August 2026, read 2 October 2026) requires a square favicon of at least 8×8 pixels and recommends a size "larger than 48x48px" so it holds up across different surfaces. Supported formats are BMP, GIF, ICO, PNG, JPEG, PPM and TIFF — SVG is not on that list. Google supports one favicon per site, understood as a hostname, so a subdomain has its own and a subdirectory doesn't. The file's address should stay stable, Googlebot needs access to both the favicon and the homepage, and showing the favicon in results is never guaranteed even when every guideline is met. Re-crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.

Logo for Google in structured data. The logo property on Organization structured data helps Google choose the logo it shows in results and the knowledge panel. The guidelines (updated 8 September 2026) require an image of at least 112×112 pixels in a format supported by Google Images, and tell you to check how the logo looks on a plain white background — a light or grey logo can disappear on one. Google Images supports BMP, GIF, JPEG, PNG, WebP, SVG and AVIF, so SVG works for a logo in structured data and on the page itself, just not as a favicon.

LinkedIn. The LinkedIn Help page (read 2 October 2026) gives a minimum of 268×268 pixels and a recommended 400×400 for a company page's logo, and 1,512×256 for the cover photo. All images must be PNG or JPEG, up to 3 MB. The logo is shown on both light and dark backgrounds, and a transparent one lands on white, so LinkedIn recommends checking both variants.

Facebook. Facebook Help (undated page, read 2 October 2026) recommends a 320×320-pixel profile photo and warns it's "cropped to a circle", so your mark needs to work within that shape. For images with a logo or text, PNG tends to give better results. A cover photo needs at least 400×150 pixels, and the fastest-loading option is an sRGB JPG at 851×315 pixels under 100 KB.

Whether and how a business should run its social-media presence is covered separately in social media.

A logo is one of the later purchases a new business makes, not the first — after the name, the domain, the mailbox and the first clients. The full order, from week zero to the first employee, is set out in technology for a new business.