Director General Antti Riivari
The year 2021 was characterised by the continuing COVID-19 pandemic and the measures introduced to contain it.
As a whole, Finland managed the exceptional situation quite well, which was also reflected in the activities of the PRH. Our financial performance was good.
There were no significant changes in the number of applications and notifications submitted to the PRH.
Finnish companies give a high priority to the protection of their industrial property rights, which was reflected in the number of patent and trademark applications.
There was further increase in the number of notifications to the Trade Register
and we were again able to shorten the processing times of most applications and notifications. This was achieved with continuous improvements in processing and growing use of online services.
Work on digitalisation continued. We promoted system development projects and developed information architecture and system testing practices. We built new online services for our customers. Development of the risk management system progressed according to schedule. We also focused on planning and monitoring methods for ICT development projects.
In July 2021, we launched the Real-Time Economy project in cooperation with the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment, Finnish Tax Administration and the State Treasury. The project is based on the Programme of the Finnish Government. The project organisation was approved, personnel for the project were recruited and the external expert services required in the project were put out to tender during autumn 2021.
Responsibility reporting based on the sustainable development goals of the UN will be extended to cover all central government agencies. During the year, we identified the sustainable development goals that the PRH can promote to achieve the maximum impact. We also set up the organisation for responsibility reporting.
Despite the challenges posed by the COVID-19 epidemic, customer satisfaction remained at a very high level. Because of the epidemic, we had to close our customer service point in Helsinki several times during the year.
Most of our staff members continued to work on a remote basis. Despite the situation, there was further improvement in job satisfaction and it reached an all-time high. The target set for wellbeing at work was also exceeded.