Industrial property rights are significant exclusive rights by which entities can secure their investments in product development, brand or design. Exclusive rights secure their owners’ right to prevent others from exploiting protected trademarks, inventions or designs. The holders of exclusive rights can also grant licences for their property for compensation. Essential industrial rights include patents, utility models, trademarks and design rights.
Industrial property rights do not provide direct protection under the law. If you want to protect your invention, you have to apply for an industrial property right from the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH).
Patent
Patents are prohibition rights. They provide their holders with exclusive rights, on the basis of which patent holders can prohibit the professional exploitation of their patented inventions. Patent holders themselves have to oversee that nobody infringes on their exclusive rights.
Patents can be granted for inventions that can be used in industry. The invention can be a device, a product, a production method or a new way of using an existing solution or product. Industrial applicability means that the invention provides a concrete solution to a technical problem. However, in this context, industrial applicability is interpreted quite loosely. For example, methods and equipment used in trade and handicrafts can be industrially applicable.
Getting a patent requires absolute novelty of the invention. If the invention has become known in some way before filing the patent application, the patent cannot be granted. In addition to novelty, an inventive step is required. It means that the invention has to essentially differ from previously known solutions.
When reviewing applications, PRH investigates the novelty and the inventive step of the inventions. Holders of granted patents keep them valid by paying annual renewal fees. Patents are valid for a maximum of 20 years from the date of application. Patent holders can sell their patents or grant licences to their patented inventions for a compensation known as royalty.
Applying for patents is expensive. A national patent application filed by an agent costs about 1,700–5,000 euros. The total cost can add up to tens of thousands of euros if you want to patent your product for the export market. Smaller inventions can be protected by utility models.
Utility model
A utility model refers to a registered exclusive right to the professional use of an invention. You can get a utility model right to a technical invention with industrial applicability. It can be a product, a device or a mixture of chemical substances. Utility models require absolute novelty and an inventive step. In this context, the inventive step means a clear difference from the previously known solutions.
PRH does not investigate the novelty and the inventive step of the invention but it checks that the application is formally correct and that the invention corresponds with the legal definition of an invention. For this reason, getting the utility model protection is faster than registering patents. It is also cheaper because you do not need to pay other fees besides the registration fee.
Registered utility models are valid for four years. They can be renewed for another period of four years and, after that, for two more years. Utility model rights can also be sold or licensed for a royalty.
Design rights
Design rights grant exclusive rights to using designs. This means, among other things, the production, marketing and importing of products or models that feature or include the protected design.
Patents and utility models protect the concrete implementations of industrially applicable technical innovations. Design rights protect product designs. Design rights protect the design of products or their parts, manifested in the appearance of products or their characteristics. This refers to the overall impressions resulting from the lines, contours, shapes, colours, texture and materials of products. The protection always applies to concrete products or their parts. For example, a design right can be granted to a chair or a part of its seat. For products, independence is not a requirement. Therefore, design rights can be granted to textile patterns, cloth ornaments, graphic logos or fonts.
The registration of design rights requires novelty and uniqueness of the design. Novelty means that the design was not publicly known before the date of application. Uniqueness refers to the design differing from previously known ones. In addition, the design has to be the result of creative, intellectual work, which is why simple and ordinary designs cannot be protected. The registration is valid for five years, after which it can be renewed four times for five years at a time. Holders of design rights can sell rights partially or in their entirety as licences.
Trademarks
Registering a trademark at the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) grants you an exclusive right to use it. The exclusive right entails that only the holder can use the trademark as a symbol of their products and services. It also entails a right to prohibit others from using the trademark or a symbol that could be confused with it.
A trademark can be any symbol that can be presented graphically. For example, it can be a word, a pattern, a character combination, a sound signal or a slogan. Registering a trademark requires that the trademark is distinctive, so that it cannot be confused with another trademark or company name.
The trademark registration is valid for ten years from the date of application, and it can be renewed for 10 years at a time. Trademark holders can transfer or license their trademarks to somebody else.
The Finnish Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment is responsible for industrial property rights legislation and takes part in the work on IPR-related issues in the EU and on other international forums. The Finnish Patent and Registration Office handles industrial property right applications and the national industrial property rights databases.
You can find further information on industrial property rights and how to apply them on https://www.prh.fi/en/presentation_and_duties/information_and_services/ipr_information_for_smes.html