Message from the Director General

The Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH) can be satisfied with the year 2019.

There was further increase in the number of Trade Register notifications even though the economic situation and the business operating environment in Finland were characterised by growing uncertainties.

Even though the number of notifications increased, the PRH achieved all processing time targets set for applications and notifications. Moreover, we were able to shorten processing times in accordance with customer needs.

The targets for online notifications were also met. Under the legislative changes that entered into force in 2019, trademark applications and notifications of beneficial owners can now only be submitted electronically, which is a particularly important milestone in the promotion of online services.

The work to develop our online services continued. During the year, the PRH introduced online services for start-up notifications of housing companies and for submitting beneficial owner details. We launched new services for trademark applications and made the new online services for the Register of Associations available.

The purpose of our digital projects is to ensure that we can achieve our strategic goals: help our customers to succeed and provide open and easy-to-use data and information services. Feedback from customers and stakeholders is vital to us in this work, and our customers are increasingly involved in the development of online services.

The PRH is a customer service agency. We have a large customer base and it includes all Finnish companies and associations. We use surveys and other instruments to measure customer satisfaction each year. In 2019, customer satisfaction was at 4.0 (on a scale of 1 to 5), which was again in accordance with the target set.

As in earlier years, job satisfaction among our employees was at high level. The PRH remains an attractive employer, which is essential so that the agency can maintain its role as a provider of expert services.