This step reflects the growing collaboration between Saudi Arabia and the United States in the area of intellectual property (IP) as it aims to improve and mainstream IP services to support business development in both countries.

Thus, the USPTO becomes the 7th ISA designated by SAIP, which includes the Korean Intellectual Property Office (KIPO), the European Patent Office (EPO), the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), the Egyptian Patent Office (EGPO), the Russian Federal Administration of Intellectual Property (ROSPATENT), and the Canadian Intellectual Property Office (CIPO).

For more information, please contact saudi-arabia@qumsieh.com.

Under the new guidelines, the patent annuities have to be paid in accordance with their due dates regardless of whether a decision on the application has been issued.

For more information, please contact qatar@qumsieh.com.

Applicants can now choose not to pay the annuity fees after the third year [from the date of filing or from the international filing date if the application is a PCT-national phase application] if the patent application is still pending. Once the Patent Office issues a grant decision, the applicant must pay all overdue annuities along with the grant fees, while the remaining subsequent annuities can be paid on their respective due dates.

For more information, please contact qatar@qumsieh.com.

Under the pilot programme, applicants whose claims have been examined by SAIP or the EPO may request accelerated processing of their corresponding patent application.

The two offices will share existing work results and data, enabling the offices to make use of each other’s work. This should lead to reduced efforts, increased efficiency, and reduced costs for users.

For more information, please contact saudi-arabia@qumsieh.com.

Patent annuities are due for all applications filed for at least one or more years where the annuity fees have to be paid retroactively for all previous years calculated from the PCT application date.

Below are the fees as announced by the Ministry’s office.

For more information, or for our detailed schedule of charges, please contact kuwait@qumsieh.com.

Publications
Patent applications will be published after 18 months from the filing date or 18 months from the priority date. Previously, only accepted patent applications were published, so it will be possible to search for pending patent applications after the payment of the prescribed fees.

Official Fees
The new regulation now distinguishes between individual and corporate applicants. Accordingly, the patent official fees have been reviewed and re-structured to reflect the new amendments in compliance with the Patent Law amendments.

Our updated schedule of charges are available upon request.

If you have any questions, please contact jordan@qumsieh.com.

The above applies to all previous pending and granted patents where patent owners may pay annuity fees for their patents for as many years as they wish, all at once, for up to 20 years from the filing date.

For more information, please contact jordan@qumsieh.com.

The PCT came into force in Kuwait on 9 September 2016, after after it acceded to the treaty of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and Kuwait will automatically be designated on all PCT applications as of that date.

The applicable time limit for national phase entry is 30 months from the earliest priority, or 18 months from the international PCT-application filing date.

Since the Patent Office of Kuwait has stopped receiving any patent applications since 4 April 2016, however, it remains unclear the affect on international filings and national phase entries.

We note that Kuwait is the 149th member of the PCT and the sixth and final Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) member state to accede to the PCT.

Further developments will be reported in due course. In the meanwhile, if you have any questions or need more information, please contact us at kuwait@qumsieh.com.

Accordingly, each applicant or its agent should submit a request for substantive examination with respect to applications formally accepted in the year 2013-2014 within two months from the date of the notification, i.e. 21 September 2016. Said request should be accompanied by a payment of the examination fees of OMR300 (equivalent to USD780) and a photocopy of the completed formalities, which includes the application form as submitted including any amendments to the specifications, description, abstract, claims, and drawings in Arabic and English languages, as well as a photocopy of the first page of the application for publication purposes.

Failure to submit said request on or before 21 November 2016, the patent application will be considered cancelled in accordance with article 9 (5) a and b of the Industrial Property Law no. 67/2008.

This comes as a result of the signing of a memorandum of understanding between the Omani and the Egyptian Patent Offices, where the Egyptian Patent Office acts as the examining office for all pending and new patent applications filed in Oman.

For more information, please contact oman@qumsieh.com.

The session was opened by the Director of the Department of Industrial Property in Dubai, Mr. Khalfan Ahmad Alsweedi. The online system is still on trial for improvements and the Ministry is open to receive any comments made by users.

The online system was first launched on 23 June 2016, and the Ministry is planning to expand said system to allow payments of annuity fees for both patents and designs at the beginning of next year.

The main points of the new system are:

• The application effective date will be the date official fees are paid; the application will be canceled if the official fees are not paid within 30 days from the date of submission;
• It is possible to make amendments to the application before the payment of the official fees, after payment no changes are possible;
• All files can be submitted online, further submitting of any documents after submission of the application online have to be done physically;
• Filing numbers of new patent applications must conform to the following sequence P6000001/2016 and for industrial designs D6000001/2016;

If you have any questions, please contact uae@qumsieh.com.