Patents Crucial To Protecting Innovation, Supporting National Economy

(MENAFN- Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)) By Abdulaziz Al-Mejren
KUWAIT, Jan 16 (KUNA) -- The Trademark and Patent Dept. is one of the key divisions of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, which contributes to national economic growth through protection of the intellectual property (IP) rights of innovators.
The department works to ensure effective implementation of the IP laws, improve the investment atmosphere and ensure fair competition among investors.
The IP rights are divided into two branches authors' rights or literary copyrights and industrial design rights, which includes patents and trademarks.
In an interview to KUNA, Supervisor of Trademarks and Patents at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry Rashed Al-Owaihan shed light on the procedures of trademark registration and the efforts to protect the rights of inventors.
"Founded in 1962, the Trademark and Patent Dept. used to take a long time, maybe two year, to register a trademark.
"But with the introduction of the automated trademark registration services in 2018, the process of registration takes just two months and a 60-day ultimatum for publication," he said.
The department registers an average of 1,100 trademarks a month, nearly two time the figure done in the period before transition to automated registration service, Al-Owaihan pointed out.
Regarding the revenues from the process, he said a trademark registration costs KD 310 (some USD 1,000), transfer of copyright - KD 70 (USD 226) and renewal of trademark KD 370 (USD 1,195.
The average monthly turnover of trademark registration amounts to KD 500,000 - 550,000 (USD 1.6 million - 1.7 million), he said, noting that his department handles 6,000 - 6,500 online applications a month.
The automated trademark registration services helped increase the number of companies doing business in Kuwait, Al-Owaihan affirmed.
The Department targets increasing the monthly revenues from registration to KD one million (USD 3.2 million) - an ambitious target that could be reached through improved investment atmosphere, he noted.
It targets raising the annual revenues from KD seven million to KD 12 million.
It handles an average of 800 patents annually, including 50 from inside Kuwait, he went on.
Protection of IP gives owner of a trademark confidence in the market and protects investors against piracy, thus encouraging them to expand their activities in a trustworthy atmosphere.
Highlighting the need of promoting awareness about trademark registration, Al-Owaihan said failure of an inventor to register their inventions makes them liable to pirates and incur economic loss.
On the other hand, a trademark owner can lodge a complaint with the Department, which will, in turn, investigate the complaint and take the necessary punitive action against transgressors, he explained.
The trademarks registered by the Department are protected only inside Kuwait, but if their owners sought to expand their activities regionally or internationally, they have to register in the targeted countries.
The Department aims to join the Madrid Protocol, an international system of registration, which is administered by the International Bureau of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), he added.
Kuwait is a party to the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the 1998 WIPO Convention, and the 2014 Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property, and the 2016 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). (end)
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