The issuance of the Implementing Regulations of the GCC Trademark Law in May 2015 by the GCC Trade Cooperation Committee beckoned a new era for a regional trademark law in the Middle East.
The GCC states, namely, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have been involved in the coordination of intellectual property since the late ‘80s. The GCC Patent Regulations and the Statute of the GCC Patent Office were approved in 1992 and the GCC Patent Office commenced operations in 1998, and granted its first patent in 2002.
The GCC Trademark Law, unlike the GCC Patent Law, is a unifying, not a unitary law. The Law was issued in 2006 and revised in 2014. It stipulates a set of provisions that will be applied uniformly across all the GCC, in regards to the prosecution and enforcement of trademark rights. It does not offer a unitary registration system, however. The Trademark Offices of each GCC country will remain as the receiving office and register trademarks on a national basis. Registering a trademark across the six GCC countries will still require filing six separate national trademark applications. Furthermore, the official fees are not expected to be unified and will vary depending on the individual overhead costs of the different TMOs involved. Furthermore, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and UAE have considerably increased their official fees over the past few months with Bahrain and Qatar expected to follow suit.
The definition of a trademark has significantly expanded, given the adoption of the GCC Trademark Law by the member states. Article 2 of the Law includes color marks, sound marks, and smell marks as trademarks, suggesting that it will be possible to secure registrations of such marks across the GCC.
Furthermore, multiclass applications are allowed under the GCC Trademark Law, which constitutes a major shift in trademark practices in the once single class application countries in the GCC. The registration requirements have also been updated and now include a provision for foreign words, which entails providing certified translations of the word or phrase and an indication on how to pronounce it in Arabic, as per Article 4 of the Implementing Regulations.
The examination process is harmonized now, with applications being examined within 90 days from the date of submission. The TMO will then notify the applicant of the decision. There is a 90 day period to respond to office actions from the date of notification before the application is considered abandoned.
Other features of the Trademark Law are:
- Claim of priority, based on an earlier-filed foreign application, is possible
- Trademark applications accepted by the Registrar will be published for opposition purposes. Oppositions must be filed within 60 days from publication date
- Trademark registrations are valid for 10 years from filing date and are renewable for like periods. There is a grace period of six months for late renewals
- A trademark is vulnerable to cancellation by any interested party if there has been no effective use of the mark for a period of five consecutive years after registration
- The Law recognizes famous trademarks that are well-known in the GCC member states and shall ensure protection thereof even if the marks are not registered
- The Law gives the right to trademark owners to initiate civil and criminal actions against any infringing party. Penalties include a maximum of five year imprisonment and payment of fines of up to US $270,000
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