In the Official Gazette of November 2021, the implementing regulations of the amended GCC Patent Law has been issued, and will be in force within 3 months of its publication.
The Gulf Cooperation Council published a set of amendments to the GCC Patent Law restricting the role of GCC Patent system. According to said amendments, GCC Patent Office will continue accepting new applications. However, those patent applications will be handled under the new model of the GCC system according the following conditions:
- Firstly, receiving new patent applications, examination and prosecution thereof will be Only upon a request from a GCC member state.
- Further, the grant of said patents will be upon approval of the requesting member state.
- Finally, the granted patents will be valid only in the requesting member states.
It's worthy to say that this new model of GCC system is substantively different from the previous one, where the patent applications were being received, handled and granted, independently, by the GCC Patent Office, and that granted patent were valid in each of the six GCC member states.