In conjunction with the upcoming introduction of the new-style Nordic Combat Uniform, the Swedish Ministry of Defence has announced a new version of their tried-and-tested M90 pattern for camouflage clothing.

 

The original M90, aka Swedish Splinter, camo was first introduced for all branches of the Swedish Armed Forces in 1989, and was never copyright protected. This meant that anyone could produce copycat prints of the pattern – even potential adversaries – without legal ramifications.

 

As we first reported in our update on the Nordic Combat Uniform program, the Swedish MoD intended to both update the camouflage pattern itself, and also address the copyright issue, with the rollout of the new common Nordic uniform. Today the news broke of just how they intend to do so. According to Swedish sources, the shapes of the pattern have been slightly reduced in size and distribution, and a logo of Swedish national 3-crowns insignia has been inserted in enough places that the pattern cannot be copied without including them, which would be a violation of copyright protections.

The images below, thanks to source in Nordic Combat Uniform discussion group, show examples of how this might look for the Woodland, Desert, and Snow versions of the M90-improved camo scheme.