Our legal trainee Kasperi Kokkonen examined Finnish and Swedish companies’ communication about brand rights through annual reports. The comparison reveals that the role of trademarks and other brand rights as drivers of company value remains partly invisible and underutilized in Finnish companies' communications. Swedish companies describe their brand rights more broadly as strategic assets and as part of business value creation.
In international consumer product markets, a brand guides customer choices and forms an essential part of a company's value. Yet how companies communicate the protection of their brand to investors and other stakeholders in their annual reports varies surprisingly widely between Finnish and Swedish consumer product brands — even within the same industry.
What do companies say about brand rights in their annual reports?
From Finland, the comparison includes Luhta, Marimekko, and Amer Sports; from Sweden, Björn Borg and Fenix Outdoor. Nike serves as an international reference point, illustrating how a major global brand owner approaches the same topic.
The core question is straightforward: how concretely do companies describe trademark registration, enforcement, anti-counterfeiting, and other legal actions related to their brand — and what does this communicate to investors, partners, and other stakeholders?
Luhta: respecting the law, no further comments
Among Finnish companies, Luhta is the most straightforward example. In its annual report (2024), the topic is addressed briefly, stating that the company respects trademark and copyright laws and expects others to do the same.
What is striking is how little attention the subject receives. Brand rights are not presented as a competitive advantage or a strategic asset — even though the clothing and lifestyle business is built precisely on recognizable brands and consumer perceptions.
The text gives the impression that trademarks and copyrights belong on the compliance side of the business, not in actively managed operations. For an investor or business partner, this means the role of brand rights in building company value remains invisible — even though in practice it may be highly significant.
Marimekko: brand is seen as a visual identity, not as a legally managed asset
Marimekko is an interesting special case, because the entire business is built around recognizable design. Consumers recognize the patterns and colours almost instantly — and for that very reason, one might expect the protection of brand rights to feature prominently in the reports.
This is not the case, however. Marimekko speaks extensively about original design, visual identity, and its international brand. Trademark registrations and other legal protections, by contrast, are relegated to the background. The value of the brand is clearly recognized — but it is articulated as a cultural and commercial strength, not as a legally managed asset.
This encapsulates a certain Finnish approach: the brand is important, but it is not discussed as something owned and controlled in the same way as in Swedish or American examples. For a company like Marimekko, whose core business is precisely a protectable visual identity, this is a noteworthy communicative choice.
Amer Sports: a Finnish company following an American reporting model
Amer Sports stands out clearly from the previous two. Although the company has Finnish roots, its reporting resembles that of an international listed company — which is logical, given that it listed on the New York Stock Exchange.
The report addresses brand rights management concretely. The company lists the product brands it owns — Arc'teryx, Salomon, Wilson, Peak Performance, Atomic — and emphasizes its right to defend them by all means available under applicable law. Intellectual property rights are described as a key business asset, and long-term success is said to depend on the ability to acquire, maintain, protect, and defend its rights in brands, designs, and technologies.
The report also presents concrete figures: approximately 6,200 trademark registrations, approximately 1,100 trademark applications in over 120 countries, and approximately 800 domain name registrations, such as arcteryx.com, salomon.com, and wilson.com. The company also openly addresses international intellectual property risks: differences in trademark legislation across countries, political actions that may hinder enforcement of rights, and risks related to the use of artificial intelligence — such as unintentional infringement of third-party rights or the weakening of management of its own trade secrets.
Amer Sports is thus a company of Finnish origin whose reporting style is already clearly closer to that of a global listed company than to a traditional Nordic consumer brand. It demonstrates what happens when investor reporting requirements and an international business environment raise the bar.
Björn Borg: the trademark is a competitive position, not just a registered name
In Björn Borg's annual report, brand rights are presented as a strategic asset from the outset. The report begins by emphasizing ownership through registrations. By owning the trademarks, the Björn Borg Group can operate from a position of strength internationally and manage the development of the brand. Ownership also provides long-term security for the operations of the licensee and distribution network — protecting the trademark is not only in the company's interest, but a prerequisite for the entire licensee and distribution network.
According to the report, responsibilities are clearly defined, and the Group has its own brand rights specialists. Having acquired the Björn Borg trademark in 2006, the Group has been responsible for trademark registrations and protection. The contrast with Luhta is concrete: whereas Luhta states that it respects the law, Björn Borg explains which party is responsible for registrations and enforcement, and with what resources.
The report also goes beyond the level of registrations. Björn Borg devotes significant resources to combating the sale of counterfeit products. The company explains why: copyright and trademark infringements, the distribution of copied products — so-called piracy — damage the Björn Borg brand, the reputational capital of its products, and weaken the company's profitability. Brand protection is directly linked to reputation and profitability, not merely to the registered rights.
The company also recognizes the significance of the trademark for market access. The opportunity to expand into new markets may be limited if, for example, a third party in some country has registered a trademark that could be confused with the Björn Borg brand.
The trademark is therefore not merely a defensive tool against copying, but a factor that directly affects the growth strategy. At the same time, the company honestly acknowledges that there are no guarantees that the measures taken to protect the brand will be sufficient — making the reporting realistic rather than merely self-assured reassurance.
Fenix Outdoor: brands are measurable assets
Fenix Outdoor brings a second Swedish perspective. The Group owns several outdoor brands — Fjällräven, Hanwag, Devold, Royal Robbins, Tierra — and in the report these brands are presented as building blocks of the Group's value, managed with a long-term approach.
Trademarks are addressed in the report as intangible assets with concrete figures: the estimated useful lifecycle of the Hanwag and Brunton brand trademarks is 15 years, Devold's 20 years, and Royal Robbins' 5 years. The brands are not merely names, but manageable assets with economic value and a lifecycle — in the same way as other items appearing on the balance sheet.
The Group says it works actively to protect and develop its brands through legal action and commercial development. The Fjällräven brand is described through long-lasting products representing the highest quality, with the goal of being the world's most sustainable outdoor brand.
Legal protection does not appear as isolated measures, but as part of a long-term effort to maintain and grow brand value through quality, continuity, and international brand management.
Nike: brand protection is a global infrastructure
Nike is not a realistic point of comparison for Nordic companies, but it serves as an important benchmark: it shows what brand rights management can evolve into when a company operates as a truly global brand house.
In Nike's annual report, intellectual property rights are stated directly to be central to the company's brand, success, and competitive position — and they are actively protected and defended. The Nike and Swoosh trademarks are registered in over 190 countries. In addition to trademarks, the report covers patents, copyrights, trade secrets, design rights, licensing arrangements, and intellectual property risks related to digital products and artificial intelligence — including the risk that the use of AI may unintentionally infringe third-party rights or weaken the management of the company's own intangible rights.
At a practical level, Nike describes in detail its international trademark monitoring, ongoing anti-counterfeiting efforts, oversight of licensing partners, and the monitoring of potential infringements by competitors. The report also addresses situations where legislation in various countries does not protect trademarks or other rights in the same way as in the United States — and how this affects business operations.
In Nike's report, the brand appears almost as a complete global legal infrastructure: trademarks, patents, copyrights, trade secrets, licensing agreements, partners, digital services, and an international domain name strategy form a unified whole, the maintenance of which requires continuous monitoring, registrations, contract management, and legal enforcement across different markets simultaneously. It is a clear message to investors: a brand is not merely a name or a logo, but a managed and defensible business system.
Brand rights as a visible part of business value creation
The findings of the country comparison do not mean that Finnish companies are indifferent to their brand rights. The difference is in how they communicate the issue to investors, partners and other stakeholders — and what message this sends.
In the Swedish examples, brand rights are a visible part of business value creation. The reports explain who is responsible for registrations, how counterfeiting is combated, what risks international operations entail, and how trademark ownership connects to growth opportunities. In the Finnish examples — apart from Amer Sports — the same significance remains more implicit: the value of the brand is recognized, but its legal management does not emerge as clearly as part of the business strategy or risk management.
This matters particularly because an annual report is not merely a financial statement. It is a message to the market: it communicates how the company itself understands the sources of its own value and how it manages them. When brand rights recede into the background of reporting, the reader — whether an investor, licensee, distribution partner, or journalist — can easily form the impression that it is a marginal matter. Even if the reality is quite the opposite.
From the perspective of an investor, licensing partner, or other stakeholder, this has concrete significance. A company that clearly explains how it owns, registers, monitors, and where necessary defends its brand simultaneously communicates that it understands its brand as a manageable business asset — not merely a recognizable name or visual identity. That is credibility that is built before a single contract, or investment decision has been made.
Nike and Björn Borg are companies of different sizes, but they share the same mindset: brand rights are not a legal footnote, but the core of the business — acquired, monitored, and actively defended. How this is communicated in the annual report is part of the message a company sends to all its stakeholders. And it is precisely here that Nordic consumer brands — including Finnish ones — still have room to grow.