Finnish law provides protection for trade names registered in Finland. Until last year, however, the Finnish Supreme Court had never decided whether trade names registered in a country other than Finland were entitled to protection in Finland. The Finnish Supreme Court addressed this issue for the first time in 1994 in Iveco NV v. Iweco Oy. In deciding the Iveco case, the court provided clear guiding principles to a previously uncertain area of Finnish trade name law. The lower Finnish courts have since been following the Supreme Court's precedent.

In Iveco, the plaintiff's trade name IVECO NV was registered in a Paris Convention country, the Netherlands, with a priority date of January 19, 1973. In late 1975, the plaintiff began to import into Finland utility vehicles (e.g., trucks and buses) bearing the trademark IVECO. In 1976 and 1977, the plaintiff filed two Finnish trademark applications, both of which included the word IVECO. By contrast, the defendant's trade name IWECO OY was not registered in Finland until December 9, 1977. Thus, the Finnish Supreme Court found that the plaintiff's mark IVECO was fairly well-known as a trademark for utility vehicles in Finland before the defendant filed a trade name registration application for IWECO OY in late 1977.

The Finnish Supreme Court also found that IVECO NV and IWECO OY were apt to be confused with each other. In particular, IVECO, the dominant part of the plaintiff's trade name, and IWECO, the dominant part of the defendant's trade name, sound the same in Finnish and have no specific meaning in Finnish. In addition, the field of activity of the two parties was found to be similar because the marketing of IVECO NV and IWECO OY was directed partly at the same customers.

Given the above findings, the Finnish Supreme Court ruled that the registration of the defendant's trade name IWECO OY in 1977 was contrary to Finland's Law on Trade Names. In addition, the Supreme Court upheld the decision of the lower courts to cancel the defendant's trade name IWECO OY.

In ruling for the plaintiff in Iveco, the Finnish Supreme Court first noted that neither an 1895 trade name statute nor a 1979 trade name act delineated the grounds on which a trade name registered in Finland can be cancelled by the action of an owner of a trade name that had been registered abroad, but was not registered in Finland. To fill in this gap in Finnish trade name law, the Finnish Supreme Court turned for guidance to the Paris Convention, since Finland is a party thereto. Article 8 of the Paris Convention provides that a trade name shall be protected in all of the Paris Convention countries without the obligation of filing or registration. Significantly, the Supreme Court in Iveco did not quote Article 8 as a direct basis for its holding, but instead held that a foreign trade name not registered in Finland is protected in Finland if the trade name is registered in another Paris Convention country and if the trade name is fairly well-known within the relevant branch of trade in Finland. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the plaintiff because the plaintiff's trade name IVECO NV was registered in another Paris Convention country prior to the registration of the defendant's trade name IWECO OY in Finland and because the plaintiff's trade name was fairly well-known within the relevant branch of trade in Finland.

While the Finnish Supreme Court in Iveco set forth for the first time clear guiding principles in a previously uncertain area of Finnish trade name law, the court did not specify the extent to which a trade name registered in a Paris Convention country other than Finland must be known in Finland in order to be protected in Finland. Thus, the Finnish courts will have to determine on a case-by-case basis whether or not such a trade name is fairly well-known within the relevant branch of trade in Finland. For example, a 1971 decision by the Helsinki Appeal Court involving the trade name DR. PEPPER COMPANY suggested that a trade name may become fairly well-known in Finland through foreign newspapers and magazines that are distributed in Finland. Of course, one cannot predict with certainty what future Finnish Courts will decide regarding other trade names.