Sunday 22 May 2011

Saudi Arabia: Overview of Intellectual Property Law


Saudi Arabia has been party to the Berne Copyright and Paris Industrial Property Conventions since the 11 March 2004 and a member of the World Trade Organization since 11 December 2005.

Its basic intellectual property statutes are:
Unofficial translations of these statutes and other legislation are to be found on the Saudi Arabia resources page of the WIPO website.

There is no intellectual property office as such. Patents, industrial designs, chip topographies and plant varieties are registered by the The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology ("KACST") which is also the Saudi Arabian national science agency, national laboratory and internet authority for the .sa country code top level domain. Trade Marks are registered by a department of the Ministry of Commerce known as the Trademarks Register while copyright and related rights are the responsibility of the Ministry of Culture.

According to the statistics page of the KACST website, there were 931 patent and 493 industrial design applications in 2010 and 262 patents and 412 design registrations were granted in that year.

Further information on Saudi Arabian intellectual property law can be obtained from Jane Lambert

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