The Norwegian Industrial Property Office (NIPO) is a public authority. The most important task is to assess applications and grant rights to patents, trademarks and designs. NIPO has "credibility" as one of its values and it is therefore important that quality control is an integrated part of our everyday work. NIPO has a quality policy and a quality management system to ensure that all work is carried out in accordance with current laws and regulations and that it meets our customers' expectations of quality.

Quality management at NIPO is organised systematically and is certified according to ISO 9001:2015 (see certificate). The ISO certification confirms that we are committed to providing quality services to our customers. The ISO standard is one of the world's most important brands in quality management and focuses on the company's customers and environments.

Read more about quality management at the NIPO:

Organising quality management

Each department responsible for ISO-certified fields has designated a quality coordinator. The quality coordinators work as a team across the organisation and advise the NIPO management team on matters concerning the quality management system.

The quality manager leads the team's work and participates at management meetings when issues related to quality management are being dealt with.

Competence

NIPO carries out both general and topic-specific training programs for all new employees. Our experienced employees also participate in internal and external courses to update their skills in intellectual property law and other relevant topics, and in international cooperation with EPO and EUIPO.

Work descriptions and guidelines

NIPO's application processing is described in our internal work descriptions. These contribute to the uniform processing of applications so that decisions are taken independent of the indivdual case officer. We have also updated sample collections and decisions from national and international jurisprudence in all our fields, decisions that form the framework for legal assessment.

Risk management

In order to understand, control and if necessary, reduce risk, the NIPO regularly carries out reviews. The various risk elements are followed up regularly throughout the year and are dealt with by the NIPO management team. In this way, measures can be taken to reduce the risk of undesirable events (precautionary principle).

Customer feedback

To find out how our customers perceive the NIPO's activities and to identify possible improvements, we conduct customer surveys every year among those who have submitted patent, trademark or design registration applications. In addition, we encourage our customers to provide feedback on the case processing, our online services and our customer service center. Customer feedback helps us identify areas that need improvement. Send your feedback to post@patentstyret.no.

Feedback from employees

In working to improve our case processing we also encourage our employees to suggest improvements. We handle about 150 suggestions annually, which both contribute to internal improvements and improvements for our customers.

Error handling

When we detect errors in case processing, these are recorded in the quality management system. These deviations are then processed by conducting a causal and impact assessment and corrective measures are taken.

Key indicators

Every two months, as part of corporate management, the NIPO management team checks out key indicators connected with application processing, non-disclosure management and customer feedback.

Internal audit and quality measurement

In order to uncover areas of improvement in our processes, we conduct a number of internal audits every year. This is done by staff with auditing experience, who carry out interviews in order to examine a selection of internal processes. Furthermore, we check that the quality of our decisions and case information is at the desired level by conducting random samples each year within each subject area.

External audit

To ensure that we comply with the requirements of ISO 9001:2015, we have annual reviews of the quality management system and its implementation in our organisation by an independent third party. NIPO is certified by Kiwa, which is an accredited certification body.