According to a recent notification issued by the Bahraini Patent Office, all patent annuity fees should be settled by no later than April 30, 2010. The Office will consider the corresponding patents to be abandoned in case of failure to pay the annuities by that date.
By way of background, the Patent Office has started accepting annuity payments for the first time in the country following a memorandum issued by the General Directorate of Industrial Property on December 3, 2008. Based on this new decision, all patents granted before the promulgation of the new patent laws (Law no. 1/2004 and Law no. 14/2006), and which are still valid, will be treated as if granted under the new laws and will therefore be governed by their provisions. As such, the remaining protection term of the said patents will be calculated based on the 20 year protection period as defined by the new laws. Furthermore, the annuities of the said patents will apply on the remaining protection period and are payable starting from May 8, 2006, the date of issuance of the regulations implementing Law no. 1/2004.
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