WTO accession negotiations have brought significant changes to the way Saudi Arabia protects intellectual property rights. Concern of trade partners in the past has focused on both the legal framework in the Kingdom and perceived lax enforcement measures. As negotiations proceeded for WTO membership, the Kingdom took significant steps toward becoming compliant with the WTO's agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, or TRIPS. Various pieces of legislation have been passed, and as a result, Saudi Arabia committed to full compliance with the TRIPS agreement upon accession without a transition period.
There are three main categories covered by the TRIPS Agreement:
Copyrights are a set of exclusive rights granted by a government for a limited time to regulate the use of creative and artistic forms of work such as literary works, movies, musical works, sound recordings, paintings, photographs, software, live performances, television or sound broadcasts and in some jurisdictions industrial designs.
Patents are a set of exclusive rights granted by a government to an inventor for a limited time, preventing others from using or selling the invention for their own benefit.
A Trademark is a distinctive sign (logo) of some kind which is used by a business to uniquely identify itself and its products to consumers, and to distinguish itself from the products of other businesses.
The protection of intellectual property rights remains a fundamental way by which corporations, authors, artists, musicians and inventors are properly recognized and funded for their work.
Profiting from a copyright or a patent helps corporations and individuals to invest in research and development (R&D) and to become more inventive.
Copyright law protects, for instance, the works of Saudi authors that are published for the first time in Saudi Arabia and of Saudi authors whose work is published abroad for the first time.
Copyrights
Copyrights violation has been an ongoing concern of Saudi Arabia's trade partners. Software and audiovisual piracy have persisted over the years, but have been declining as Saudi Arabia has increasingly taken action to curtail piracy. We sense quite a sharp improvement in the protection of audio-visual materials and printed works. The one area where we perceive piracy remains more of a concern is with computer software (See table.).
Saudi Arabia enacted a new Copyrights Law in August 2003. Its aim is to bring the country into full conformity with WTO standards for protecting intellectual property.
The new law provides copyright protection for print publications, lectures, audio recordings, visual displays, and works of art and computer programs. For audio and visual works, photographic works and anonymous works, protection lasts for 25 years following the date of first publication. For other creative works, protection lasts for the author's lifetime plus 50 years.
The main features of the new law are:
More explicit protection for computer software and databases.
More protection for audio-visual works and sound recordings, including protection for 50 years after the first public display or publication of audio-visual and sound recordings.
Protection from translations and copying.
Adjustment of the duration of protection for all artistic and literary works according to the requirements of the 1971 Berne Convention.
Saudi Arabia signed the 1971 Berne Convention on copyright protection in December 1993. Saudi Arabia joined the Berne convention for literary and artistic works and the Paris Convention for protection of industrial property in March 2004. Importantly for WTO accession, the Kingdom agreed to extend these patent protections to individuals or firms from any member state in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).The new Copyrights Law prescribes harsher penalties for offenders than existed previously. They include imprisonment of up to six months (which can be doubled for repeat offenders), a maximum fine of SR 250,000 (SR 500,000 for repeat offenders) and compensation for damages and defamation in violation of the TRIPS Agreement.
Patents
The 1989 patent law, implemented by a patent office under the jurisdiction of the King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) established proprietary rights to most products and processes sold in Saudi Arabia. A new patent law was passed in 2004 further buttressing the patent regime in the Kingdom. Under the old law a Saudi patent was valid for 15 years with the possibility of a five-year extension.
The new patent law extended the protection period to 20 years. Under the new law, industrial designs are protected.
The conditions for obtaining design protection were that the design must be new, have specific features and not be contrary to the Shari'a.
What remain unpatentable under the new law are plants, animals, and essentially biological processes and microbiological processes. As regards pharmaceuticals, if a patent application related to a pharmaceutical is pending with KACST, the Ministry of Health will not register a generic form of pharmaceutical unless there is no possibility that the patent would be granted.
In order for the patent to remain valid, the patent holder needs to make the necessary annual fee payments.
The fee for a patent application for an establishment is SR 800. Annual fees start at SR 500 for the first year and reach SR 10,000 for the twentieth year. The fees for individuals are half those for establishments.
One trade partner viewed the lengthy time needed for patent approvals as a trade barrier. To remedy the situation, as part of its WTO commitments, KACST increased its patent examiners from 15 to 80. Also
the examination procedure has been modified in order to cross-reference patents issued by patent offices of other countries so that duplication can be avoided. The Kingdom committed to clear its backlog of some 11,000 patent applications by the end of 2006.
Trademarks
As a result of the WTO negotiations, Saudi Arabia revamped its trademarks law in 2002. The law provides protection for a trademark in the Kingdom for 10 years. The new law provides for fines up to SR 1 million and imprisonment of up to 1 year for trademark infringement. If a trademark application is denied, an entity has the right to file an appeal before the Board of Grievances. The law also ensures the protection of well-known trademarks, even if they are not registered. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry periodically conducts high profile crackdowns on trademark infringements.
The WTO recognizes that geographical indications are valuable as marketing tools in the global economy.
Geographical indications identify a good as originating in a specific geographical region where a given quality or reputation of a good is attributable to that region.
Examples of geographical indications from Saudi Arabia include: Hail for potatoes; Taif for grapes; and Al Qassim for dates. The new Trademarks Law contains provisions regarding protection of geographical indications. In other words, only Hail potato producers would have the right to use 'Hail potatoes' as a trademark for the region's potatoes.
© Saudi Commerce and Economic Review 2006
