Collections and information sources
Information on paper and online
The core of our collection consists of books and journals about industrial property rights (patents, trademarks, utility models and design protection), companies, associations and foundations, and publications of industrial property organisations.
The most important handbooks about industrial property are still in printed form and will be updated when the details change.
All the books and periodicals we acquire are catalogued in our book database.
Go to the library’s book database.Open link in a new tab
Patent documents are available in archives or databases
Patents are public information. Each year, over 2 million new patent documents are published. In total, over 80 million patent documents have been published in several languages in over 100 countries. You can find publications and related documents and data in the free databases available at prh.fi.
Since 2011, all public archival material, with related correspondence, concerning Finnish patent publications has been available online. However, older archival material from 1975 to 2010 is still partly available only in paper form:
- The documents related to patents granted between 1975 and 2000 are kept in the National Archives of Finland, which is primarily responsible for customer service concerning these documents. If authoritative interpretation is required with respect to this material, these documents must be ordered by contacting the customer service of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH).
- The PRH is, in turn, solely responsible for customer service concerning the documents related to patents granted between 2001 and 2010. You can order copies of them (subject to a charge) or you can view them at our customer service point in Helsinki at Sörnäisten rantatie 13 C. The documents must be ordered in advance by email at library(at)prh.fi. The delivery time is about one week.
The very oldest documents from 1842 to 1974 have been transferred to the National Archives of Finland in Mikkeli. Contact the customer service team of the National Archives of Finland to view these documents.