Categories
Copyright patents trademarks

Saudi New Draft Intellectual Property Law

Saudi published last week a new draft Intellectual Property Law on its national public consultation portal. This is an interesting proposed piece of legislation that aims to improve the intellectual property framework in Saudi by addressing the relationship between intellectual property and artificial intelligence, addressing the issues relating to the creation of intellectual property in outer space by Saudi-funded space missions, and filling a number of existing gaps in Saudi intellectual property laws relating to ownership, licensing, and enforcement of intellectual property rights.

Categories
Data Protection

UAE Data Protection Law 45/2021

In case other people are also struggling to find the UAE Personal Data Protection Law 45/2021 (مرسوم بقانون اتحادي رقم (٤٥) لسنة ٢٠٢١ بشأن حماية البيانات الشخصية) here is a direct link to download the PDF:

Categories
Data Protection

New Omani Data Protection Law

A very quick update to note the Omani Personal Data Protection Law was published in the Official Gazette this morning. Many of us have been waiting for this law to be issued for years and it is great to finally read it in full. You can view the full text of the law in Arabic on this link, and in English on this link.

Categories
Copyright

UAE Copyright Law of 2021

The UAE issued late last year a new copyright law as part of its sweeping legal reform in celebration of its 50th national day. A quick glance over the new law might make it initially seem like a word for word reproduction of the previous UAE Copyright Law of 2002—and that is true to a great degree, but there are several significant specific changes in the new UAE Copyright Law of 2021 that are worth considering.

Categories
Right to Information

New(ish) Right to Information Policy in Saudi

The government of Saudi issued in May last year a national policy on the right to information, making Saudi the first country in the GCC to formally recognise the right to information as a legitimate right for members of the public. However, even though this is a transparency policy, the actual text of the policy was not available to the public in full until very recently. This post looks at the non-legally binding nature of this policy, its widely worded exceptions, and the lack of an external appeal process or any other mechanism for enforcing it. Notwithstanding its shortcomings, this policy remains a major milestone for the right to information in the GCC and may encourage other governments in the region to consider granting their citizens similar rights.

Categories
domain names

TRA Propsed Amendment to Domain Name Regulation

The TRA is currently seeking public comments on its proposed amendments to the Omani Domain Name Regulation. This proposed amendment intends to open up categories of domain names under the .om country-code top-level domain (ccTLD) that are currently restricted from registration. It also intends to open up the registration of .om domain names to natural and legal persons from around the world without requiring them to have any connection with the country. If the TRA goes ahead with its plan, the options for domain name registration available to Omani businesses will significantly reduce while putting the safety of internet users around the world at significant risk.

Categories
Privacy

Privacy is Finally a Constitutional Right in Oman

Last month, the Sultan of Oman issued a brand new constitution that made the headlines for setting a new mechanism for the succession of power and for designating a crown prince. However, something that was overshadowed by these groundbreaking developments is the recognition of the right to private life in Article 36 of this new constitution – a right that was not previously recognised in such a manner in Oman.

Categories
Open Data

Oman’s New Open Data Policy

The Ministry of Technology and Communications has very recently issued a circular announcing the release of the government’s new Open Data Policy. This policy sets the general framework that government entities must follow when releasing their data to the public in a way that should maximise the ability of businesses, journalists, members of the public, and other government entities to benefit from government data.

Categories
Copyright domain names trademarks

BeoutQ.se Domain Name Dispute

We missed a small development on the intellectual property side of the Qatar diplomatic crisis in the GCC. Several months ago, Qatar attempted to take control of the domain name beoutq.se, but its attempt was not successful.

Qatar is taking a variety of actions to stop the illegal broadcasting of the signal of beIN Sports by beoutQ – a pirate sports TV network intended to provide sports fans in Saudi and Bahrain with an alternative to watching beIN Sports. In both of these countries, beIN Sports has been officially banned as part of their ongoing feud with Qatar.

In addition to the variety of legal complaints Qatar is making against Saudi, Bahrain, and the UAE in regard to their failure to allow Qatari rights-holders to enforce their intellectual property rights in connection with the infringement of beIN Sports trademarks and broadcasting rights, Qatar made a separate small attempt at taking control of one of the domain names from which beoutQ was operating: beoutq.se.

Categories
Copyright patents trademarks

Special 301 Report of 2018: Kuwait, Saudi, and the UAE

The Office of the United States Trade Representative just issued the Special 301 Report for 2018 – an annual report by the government of the United States that identifies claimed shortcomings of intellectual property laws of foreign countries. This year’s report continues to list Kuwait on the ‘Priority Watch List’ and adds Saudi and the UAE to the ‘Watch List’.
2018 Special 301 – Kuwait

Even though Kuwait has issued a brand new copyright law in 2016, the United States is not still satisfied with this law in regard to ‘the term of protection; limitations on the amount of work reproduced; enforcement, remedies, and damages; and definitions’. According to this report, ‘Kuwait is in the process of drafting amendments to the Law’.

2018 Special 301 – Saudi

The United States is not happy with the extent to which Saudi grants ‘marketing approvals to domestic companies to produce generic versions of pharmaceutical products that are under patent protection either in Saudi Arabia or in the GCC’. There is also apparently a ‘continued use of unlicensed software by the government’.

2018 Special 301 – UAE

In the UAE, the United States has ‘concerns about combatting the sale and transshipment of counterfeit goods’, especially those relating to physical counterfeit markets in the UAE and the lack of IP enforcement mechanisms within free trade zones. The United States also demands that UAE starts granting ‘the necessary operating licenses to establish [collecting management organisations (CMOs)] to allow copyright licensing and royalty payments’. According to this report, trademark filing fees in UAE ‘are the highest in the world and considered cost-prohibitive to protecting trademarks in the UAE’. Finally, the report complains about UAE officials allowing ‘domestic manufacture of generic versions of pharmaceutical products still under patent protection in the United States’, and has questions about ‘whether the UAE intends to continue to recognize patents granted by the GCC Patent Office’.

While Kuwait has been listed in every single edition of the Special 301 Report, this is the first time the UAE is ever included in it. The last time Saudi was listed is 2009 – almost a decade ago.

This report has no legal power of its own, but it is used by the United States to lobby countries around the world to change their laws to make them more protective of IP rights owned by American corporations.

Photo credits: “Kuwait City” by Meshal Alawadhi – CC BY-NC 2.0