Five-year record in patent applications

In a highly positive development, the number of national patent applications increased by more than 20% last year.

The number of national patent applications increased

Finalised national patent applications

At the same time, however, there was a slight decrease in the number of international patent applications.

There has been an increase in the number of European patents validated in Finland in recent years. However, a slight decrease was recorded in 2020.

The construction of the new patent application processing system reached the final stage.Progress was also achieved in the new patent information and payment services, which will be introduced in connection with the new processing system.

International patent matters

Processed PCT applications (PCT/RO)

Conducted novelty searches (PCT/ISA)

European patents validated in Finland (EPO)

Finalised utility model applications

Artificial intelligence now used in the examination of patent applications

Artificial intelligence is opening up new opportunities for assessing the patentability of inventions. In 2020, the PRH introduced an AI-based patent application technology developed by IPRally Technologies.

The technology automatically produces technical feature maps (graphs) of the inventions submitted for patenting and earlier patent publications. After this, artificial intelligence compares the graphs with each other to find a known technology resembling the invention.

The technology is primarily used in the early stages of examinations of new patent applications when it is important to quickly find publications that prevent the invention from being patented.