Pakistan – New Intellectual Property Law

The Pakistan Government has issued the New Intellectual Property Law that repealed the old Trademark, Patent and Design Laws. The most significant changes:

Patents

1. The protection of chemical products has been allowed, however, chemical products intended for use in agriculture and/or medicine shall be treated as and filed under the Black Box Filing System.
2. Microorganisms, microbiological processes and products of such processes have become patentable.
3. Single or multiple priority claims have been allowed.
4. Protection has been extended from 16 years to 20 years.
5. Opposition period has become four months from publication date.

Desings

1. Priority claim has been allowed.
2. Protection has been extended from 15 years to 30 years.
3. Renewals can be made as from the expiration date of the first and second ten-year protection periods.

Trademarks

1. Registrability of service marks.
2. Priority claim has been allowed.
3. Protection of well known trademarks according to Paris Convention.
4. Registration of collective marks.
5. Divisional applications have been allowed provided that the applicant has already filed a trademark application and the said application is still pending.
6. Customs Collector has been granted powers to seize products bearing infringing marks.

Accordingly, all applications filed under the old Trademark Law of 1940 will be treated to have been filed under the new law, as for the trademarks already registered, they will be transferred to the Register and maintained under the new law.

Domain Names
The provisions of the new law have also allowed the registration of domain names, provided that they are used as a source identifier and not a mere directional reference similar to a phone number or business address.