Finland's Legal and Intellectual Property Environment

Finland has enacted and enforces strong intellectual property right protections consistent with those of other Western nations. This includes being a signatory of, and adhering to, many international agreements addressing intellectual property, including the most important copyright agreements. Finland is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization, participating mainly through its membership in the European Union. Additionally, Finland has been a member of the European Patent Convention since 1996, and a member of the Paris Convention for the protection of industrial property since 1921. Other significant agreements that Finland is a signatory of include the Berne Convention for the protection of literary and artistic works (since 1928) and the Rome International Convention for the protection of performers, producers of phonograms and broadcasting organizations (1983).

Finland's primary domestic copyright protection mechanism is the Finnish Copyright Act, which entered into force in 1961 and has been amended 20 times in subsequent years (44). Computer software has been covered by the act since 1991, and penalties for violation of its provisions range from fines to imprisonment for up to two years. Recently, this body of law was amended, extending the period of copyright protection from 50 to 70 years.

Annual Finnish Piracy Rates:

While slightly above the North American average of 25%, these numbers are both lower than the global piracy rate (40%), and also represent an exception to the current global trend of piracy being on the rise (word-wide piracy rose from 2000 to 2001, from 37 to 40%). Additionally, these numbers, which give Finland one of the lowest software piracy rates in Europe, run counter to those of Europe in general; where piracy also rose, up 3 percentage points to 37%. Finland's total retail software revenue lost to piracy amounted to approximately US$46.5 million in 2000. (45)

In 2000, Finland had a total of approximately 2,750 domestic applications for patents, this figure representing a net increase of approximately 20% from the early-mid 1990s. This represents one of the highest per-capita application rates in the OECD. This number breaks out to approximately 900 individual patents, and 1,850 business/organization patents.

At 18%, information technology patent applications held a plurality as the single largest segment. With combined categories for high-technology patents in general, at 35%, Finland placed squarely at the top for the entire EU. (46) Patent fraud statistics within Finland were generally unavailable, leading to the conclusion that the practice has a negligible impact.

The above points to Finland as being an environment where the concept and practice of intellectual property rights is well developed and adhered to. Indeed, it has been suggested throughout the research for this section that Finnish society prides itself on a strong concept of ethical behavior in general.