Ustervall 25
25th birthday of Ustervall
Patent agency Ustervall was established on 24 January 1994. What were the developments at that time in Estonia? Estonian independence was restored and the Estonian Patent Office was re-established on 1991. The first two laws on intellectual property, the Copyright Act and the Trademarks Act were enforced on 1992, and the Patents Act on 1994. Thus, it was right time to start our own patent agency, called Ustervall.
Patent agency Ustervall was established on 24 January 1994. What were the developments at that time in Estonia? Estonian independence was restored and the Estonian Patent Office was re-established on 1991. The first two laws on intellectual property, the Copyright Act and the Trademarks Act were enforced on 1992, and the Patents Act on 1994. Thus, it was right time to start our own patent agency, called Ustervall.
Nomen est omen
As always, finding a right name is not easy. Our idea was that our name
must be associated with trust and loyalty (ustav, usaldus). In the dialect of a
small Estonian island trust means uster. We
added a suffix -vall (in English rampart, wall) to stress the
protection purpose. Thus, the result was Ustervall. Later
we found that the only patent agency of Narva (the 4th largest city in Estonia)
was located on a street called Vestervalli, which means the ancient western
part of city fortification called Westervall. Our concept was OK!