Al Falasi: The UAE has achieved a regional leadership in the fields of innovation and intellectual property

«Economy»: 20% growth in patent applications during 2021

Al Falasi during the briefing.

Cinematography: Mostafa Qassemi

Minister of State for Entrepreneurship and Small and Medium Enterprises, Dr. Ahmed Belhoul Al Falasi, affirmed that "the UAE has achieved regional leadership in various fields related to innovation and intellectual property."

This came during a media briefing organized by the Ministry of Economy yesterday, to introduce Federal Law No. 11 of 2021 regarding the regulation and protection of industrial property, which came among the largest legislative changes in the history of the state, which included the drafting and updating of 50 federal laws to coincide with the country's celebrations of the golden jubilee.

Al Falasi expected that the number of patent applications submitted to the Ministry of Economy in 2021 will grow by more than 20% compared to the previous year.

He reviewed the most prominent indicators that reflect the development of the industrial property and patent system in the country during the past years, which included: Achieving a substantial growth in the number of patent applications submitted annually to the Ministry of Economy, from 157 applications in 2000 to 1288 in 2010, and this number rose to 1917 applications during year 2020.

During 2021, the ministry received 2,428 new applications, with a growth rate of 26.7% compared to the previous year.

The cumulative number of patent applications tripled over the past decade (2010-2020) to reach 24,51 thousand applications during 2020, compared to 8,028 applications during 2010, and increased at the beginning of this year to 26.93 thousand applications.

The cumulative number of requests for industrial models increased by 290% during the last decade to reach 9,690 in 2020 compared to 2,483 requests for industrial models in 2010. It continued to rise to reach 10.66 thousand requests until the end of 2021.

Patent applications submitted until 2021 were distributed among various sectors, including: machinery and construction with 23% of the total applications, chemical engineering by 24%, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology by 24%, electricity and metals by 7%, and information and communication technology by 9%.

Al Falasi explained that the Ministry of Economy aims, through the procedures introduced by the new law, to shorten the period taken for issuing the results of the examination of patents to six months, starting from receiving the search and examination fees, compared to 42 months in the past.

And a review of the most prominent amendments that have been made to the law and their expected impact on the climate of innovation and intellectual property in the country, which included: Completing the system of protecting industrial property rights, by adding industrial property rights that were not included in previous legislation, namely: protecting the layout designs of integrated circuits, and this is important In stimulating and protecting electronic innovations and inventions, which contribute to advancing the path of advanced technology in the country.

It also included the adoption of four new procedures to achieve flexibility in managing and examining applications and facilitating and accelerating the procedures for receiving, examining, registering and granting them, in a way that contributes to increasing the confidence of inventors in the business environment in the country and encouraging them to innovate, namely: Urgent applications, by creating a fast track for patent applications that enables During which the formal and substantive examinations of the submitted request are completed expeditiously.

And converting patent applications to utility certificate requests, and vice versa, and this step has an important role in increasing the number of patents and utility certificates granted in the country, and increasing the use of utility certificates as an important and useful option in protecting simple inventions and innovations of a tangible nature, so that it becomes a flexible step towards Obtaining a full patent, with the possibility of dividing applications for patents, utility certificates, and industrial designs into several applications, allowing protection in the various stages of its progress, in addition to restoring applications, as it allows the possibility of restoring a patent application or industrial model before or after granting.

The new procedures included updating the procedures for disputes regarding industrial property applications to become more flexible and speedy by allowing re-examination after grants, and creating a mechanism that allows grievances to the ministry before resorting to the judiciary.

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