Patents, design and trademarks

Patent: A patent protects a concrete solution to a technical problem.

Patents are granted for inventions. The invention must represent a practical solution to a problem where the solution has a technical nature, technical effect and is reproducible. An idea or business concept cannot be patented without explaining or showing how it can be implemented in practice. Processes, products, systems and applications can be patented, such as blood analysis, computer technology and zips.

Trademark: A trademark is a distinctive characteristic of a product and/or service. A trademark can consist of all kinds of characteristics, and must be capable of being represented graphically. A trademark may for example consist of words and combinations of words (e.g. slogans), names, logos, characters and images, letters, numbers, packaging, sound and motion, or combinations thereof.

Design: Design refers to the appearance and shape of a product or a part of a product.

The following can be protected by design:

• The shape and appearance of a product, such as the design of a toothbrush, car, ship, phone or a piece of furniture.
• Parts of the product, such as a toothbrush head, chair legs, phone keyboard.
• Appearance on non-physical objects such as layouts for the web, mobile design, typographic fonts and graphic symbols. Computer programs are not eligible for design protection.
• An ornament, such as the decor of crockery or figures on textiles and wallpaper.
• An interior arrangement, such as a café or shop interior.

Enterprise: The smallest combination of legal entities that together form an organizational unit that produces goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of independent decision-making powers, particularly with regard to its current resources. In most cases, the entity would be the same as the legal entity, such as a corporation.

Patents are primarily classified by the International Patent Classification system (IPC). SSB patent data are available on the aggregate engineering fields based on IPC.

Enterprise applicants are classified by:

• Standard Industrial Classification (SN2007), based on NACE Rev. 2
• Size class by number of employees