18.11.2024
Kolster, with a history of 150 years, and Valmet, with a history of more than 220 years, are traditional Finnish companies. They also share a long history in patent protection. “The best inventions are self-evident – which is why they need to be protected with patents as soon as possible,” says Ari Malkasaari from Valmet.
Valmet Corporation is a large Finnish company with around 19,000 employees around the world. Its customers include major pulp, paper and energy companies. Valmet delivers technology, automation and services to its customers. The company also serves a wide range of process industry customers with its automation systems and flow control solutions.
Ari Malkasaari, Director of IPR, emphasises that inventing and patenting inventions are integral parts of Valmet’s operations. The company manages a portfolio of around 1,500 patent families and protects around 100 new inventions per year worldwide.
Kolster has been involved in protecting Valmet’s patents for more than 50 years. The most significant applications for patents filed in cooperation with Kolster are related to valve technology, automation systems and the production of wood fibre pulp.
“Patents are the only way to prevent technology from being copied, or at least to slow down competitors from entering the same market,” Malkasaari emphasises.
Valmet invests around EUR 120 million a year in product development. The investment is to create new products and technologies that customers need and want to buy.
“The cornerstone of our business is developing good and desirable products for our customers. We also seek to protect these products as well as possible,” says Malkasaari.
Ari Malkasaari, Director, IPR, Valmet
Knowledge of the sector is essential
Valmet has more than 20 employees working on industrial property rights, mainly patents.
“We manage our own patent portfolio and identify new inventions for which it is worth applying for a patent. The actual patent application process in Finland or other countries is managed by Kolster’s or our other IPR partners’ patent attorneys,” says Malkasaari.
He is pleased with the depth of knowledge that Kolster’s patent attorneys have gained about Valmet’s business areas.
“When a patent attorney is familiar with our technology for a specific industry, it’s easy for them to file new patent applications in that industry,” says Ari Malkasaari.
European Patent Attorney Ossi Huhtanen, partner at Kolster, describes the cooperation with Valmet as very broad-based.
“At Kolster, we have a great deal of expertise in the industries served by Valmet. We have several patent attorneys with expertise in different fields of technology,” says Huhtanen.
It’s important to ask “why”
Valmet has a clear process for commercialising its inventions. Everyone is encouraged to invent something new – and to share their inventions. Employees are also rewarded for their inventions in accordance with Valmet’s invention policy. Many inventions are created within teams and are based on practical observations related to the customer’s production process, for example.
If the invention is deemed to have commercial potential, Valmet will start the product development process. The product development teams include the company’s own patent officer, who assesses at an early stage whether the invention is patentable and worth patenting.
The patent officer also seeks to follow the results generated by the product development engineers and identify potential inventions. An engineer may not recognise patentable inventions because everything in their field is so obvious to them.
“A patentable invention often arises when a solution is introduced that already works in another field of technology. Such obvious things are the best inventions, which is why they must also be protected in time. It’s therefore important to have a patent professional involved in the product development process. Their job is to ask ‘why’ – why something works as it does, or why a process runs in a certain way,” says Ari Malkasaari.
Professional help for patenting
Valmet systematically manages its large patent portfolio. It also makes extensive use of Kolster’s patenting services. Ari Malkasaari also encourages small and medium-sized enterprises to take good care of their intellectual property.
“It will be important for Finnish industry for SMEs to also take care of their IPR in cooperation with Kolster, for example. Patent offices should also make a conscious effort to invest in Finnish companies: interact with them actively and encourage them to patent and commercialise their products,” says Malkasaari.
“Finland has the competence and ability to make great products. Better care should be taken of them. You don’t even have to manufacture the product yourself. You can sell licences for the patents or sell the patents.”
