ABU DHABI – As the United Arab Emirates continues to improve the Intellectual Property environment to be an attractive market for businesses, it decided to bring legal reform to the laws relating to Intellectual Property.

The new IP laws were approved by Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the UAE, and will be fully enacted starting from January 2, 2022.

The new amendments on Intellectual Property laws are summarized as follows:

Trademarks Law

The federal law concerning trademarks was amended to expand the scope of protection to cover three-dimensional trademarks, holograms and sound trademarks. The amendments also include registration of geographical names of trademarks or products whose name is associated with the names of specific geographic regions or countries and are famous for producing this product.

Among the amendments is the abolition of the requirement to have a trade license to allow the registration of a trademark, and granting SME owners a temporary protection to protect the trademark of their products during participation in exhibitions.

Furthermore, multiclass applications are allowed under the new Trademark Law.

Industrial Property Rights Law

The new industrial property rights law brings significant changes concerning the utility certificate that could be converted into a patent application by complying with the conditions set out by law’s executive regulations. Additionally, disclosure of information by the inventor or by a third party who obtained the information directly or indirectly from the inventor shall not affect the obtaining of a patent if this occurred within (12) months before the date of filing the application. With regards to the industrial design, it is considered new only when it has not been disclosed to the public, prior to the filing date of the application, whether by publication, use, or any other method. The new law increases the period of protection for the industrial design to (20) years starting from the date of submission of the application. On the other and, the integrated Circuit Layout Designs can be filed in the UAE and the term of protection is (10) years.

UAE Joins the Madrid System

In what has been a long-awaited development, the United Arab Emirates acceded to the Madrid Protocol on September 28, 2021, becoming the 109th member of the Madrid System, and the 3rd country in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), alongside Bahrain and Oman to join the Madrid Union. The Protocol will enter into force for the United Arab Emirates on December 28, 2021.

From HASAN AND SINGH

January 2022