The information that becomes public includes the application number, your name as an applicant and your address.

The application is confidential for 18 months

The content of your application is confidential for 18 months from the date of submission or priority date, unless you request that the application be made public sooner. When the application is published, a summary and a picture of any drawings will be published in the Swedish Patent Gazette.

Anyone can view the content of the application once it has been made public. This can be done by looking in the Swedish Patent Database, where the application can be read in full.

If we approve your application, it will become public

If we grant your application within 18 months of the filing or priority date, the content becomes public when we award the patent. The application is then available in our library as well as in the Swedish Patent Gazette.

If you want your application to remain secret for as long as possible, you can request that we wait until the 18 months have passed before granting it, and thus publishing it. A prerequisite for this is that you have paid the notification fee.

Some applications are not made public

If your application has been rejected, withdrawn or cancelled by you within 18 months of the date of submission or priority, it will never be published. If the prospects of a patent seem slim, and you would rather keep your invention to yourself, you can choose to withdraw your application well before 18 months have passed. Then it remains secret.