At the same time Finland adopted a number of changes to its patent law. The most significant are the following:
1) convention priority will be able to be claimed from any
application filed in a WTO country even if this country
(such as India or Thailand) is not a member of the Paris
Convention;
2) the maximum criminal penalty for intentional patent infringement has been increased to one year's imprisonment;
3) the burden of proof has been reversed in respect of infringement of a process patent for production of a new product so that the defendant must now prove that the patented process was not used. Furthermore, the list of acts that constitute infringement of a product patent has been expanded to include acts of importation.
2) the maximum criminal penalty for intentional patent infringement has been increased to one year's imprisonment;
3) the burden of proof has been reversed in respect of infringement of a process patent for production of a new product so that the defendant must now prove that the patented process was not used. Furthermore, the list of acts that constitute infringement of a product patent has been expanded to include acts of importation.
