Preparations for the Unitary Patent (UP) and the Unified Patent Court (UPC) have progressed. The court estimates that it will start operating in early 2023. There are currently a little over 50,000 European patents and national patents valid in Finland. With the Unified Patent System, the number of patents concerning...
Finnish Startup Permit enables entrepreneurs from outside the EU to establish a startup company in Finland. Applying for the permit is an easy two-step process that can be done online. First, you need to receive an Eligibility Statement from Business Finland, which assesses whether your business is suitable for the...
On March 25th 2022 the European Commission (EC) and the United States announced a new Trans-Atlantic Data Privacy Framework. The goal is to foster data flows between the two continents and address the concerns the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) raised. Altogether, this is now the third...
The Finnish Employment Contracts Act has been amended, and the regulation of non-competition clauses has changed. The changes are important, and employers should be aware of what’s changed and what to do next. Let’s go through the most important changes to legislation, and practical steps to take in your company.
The European Parliament and the Council adopted the digital contracts directive in May 2019, and Member States have two years to implement the directive in their national law. The new rules will then begin to apply all around EU by the end of 2021. In Finland, the Government has recently...
On December 2nd, 67 members of the World Trade Organization (WTO), including the European Union, concluded negotiations on an agreement to simplify trade in services and to reduce red tape in that sector. The signatories, including key players such as the United States, the United Kingdom, EU, and China, represent...
The Finnish Transport and Communications Agency, Traficom, has published new cookie guidelines for both website users (in Finnish) and service providers (in Finnish) in September 2021. The guidelines also apply to other tracking technologies similar to cookies, such as tracking pixels and cookies stored through mobile applications. The aim of the guidelines is, in...
In Finland, the rules for gambling are strict. The only accepted operator in the Finnish gambling market is the state-owned monopoly Veikkaus and although Finns can gamble online on international websites, marketing such games for Finnish consumers is also prohibited. The government is now preparing another reform of the Lotteries...
While eSports is classified as sports in Finnish taxation, it involves several interpretative factors within the field of tax law. One issue that gamers face, is the versatile stream of income which cause uncertainty under the current tax regime. For many, the most important source of income are tournament prizes,...
The Epic Games v. Apple trial aka (possibly) the most epic legal showdown in the video game industry history started on May 3rd in the US District Court of Northern California. Disputes arose between the two companies when Epic Games made updates to its best-selling online video game, Fortnite, attempting...
