New legal validity for patent protection

Abu Dhabi: The legal period of protection valid for a patent will be 10 years in UAE, the Legislation and Legal edicts directorate has resolved.

Giving its opinion on an issue raised by a government authority, the Directorate affiliated to the Ministry of Justice said that the Law No 17 (Year 2002) nullified the previous Federal Law No 44 (Year 1992), which stipulated a validity period of five years on protected patents.

The Directorate also resolved that if an application for patent protection was pending decision before the amendment in the law, the new term should be applied to the period of validity.

A patent is normally defined as a grant by the concerned federal government that permits its owner to exclude others from making, using, or selling a claimed invention.

The Legislation and Legal Edicts directorate opined that the patent should be registered in the appropriate records, with approval by the minister, and should be published in the official gazette, reported the Arabic daily Al Emarat Al Youm.

The application for patents - be it utility patents or design patents - should be accompanied by adequate graphics in order to qualify for technical assessment and necessary approval.

A company had filed an application for registering its industrial model for a wrist watch for patent protection, as early as in 1998. The application was accepted after scrutiny in 2007, but a ministerial approval was not given for patent protection due to the absence of technical experts to decide the originality of the model.

The concerned government department approached the Ministry of Justice for legal opinion, and hence the edict.