The PRH API for trademark search

Patentti- ja rekisterihallitus — the Finnish Patent and Registration Office, universally abbreviated PRH — is the government agency under Finland's Ministry of Economic Affairs and Employment that examines and registers trademarks, patents, utility models, and designs, and that also maintains the national Trade Register of Finnish companies. The combined IP-plus-companies mandate is structurally unusual: PRH is one of the few European offices where the same authority that grants your Finnish Oy a business ID also examines the trademark that Oy intends to use, which means PRH-published bulk data is unusually rich for portfolio queries that join brand to entity. Headquartered in Helsinki, PRH operates under the Finnish Trademarks Act (Tavaramerkkilaki) of 1 May 2019, which modernized the register and aligned Finnish practice with EU Directive 2015/2436.

Because Finland is an EU member state, most applicants who need broad European coverage file an EU trademark (EUTM) at EUIPO — one EUTM covers all 27 EU countries, Finland included, for roughly the same fee as a Finnish national filing. PRH's national register exists for the case where applicants only need Finnish protection, where local prior rights would block a wider EUTM, where applicants want a Finnish seniority date to extend later via Madrid, or where examination needs to happen under the Tavaramerkkilaki with appeals to the Market Court (Markkinaoikeus). Finland has been a Madrid Protocol member since 1 April 1996, so the register also receives international registrations designating FI, and roughly 20,000-25,000 new applications hit the office each year across the direct national and Madrid routes combined. Opposition runs for two months from publication of registration in the Finnish Trademark Gazette and cannot be extended.

PRH is best known among open-data practitioners for the avoindata.prh.fi initiative, a long-running, well-documented program that publishes the Finnish company register and related datasets as free public APIs under CC BY 4.0, with Swagger documentation and no registration fee. PRH exposes the trademark register mainly through the bilingual tavaramerkkitietopalvelu.prh.fi search service (Finnish and Swedish, with English navigation). The PRH register is not on Signa yet. Finnish marks reach Signa today through WIPO Madrid designations, and EU trademarks from EUIPO, which cover Finland, are searchable today. Join the waitlist to hear when the PRH register is added.