Protection of intellectual property in 179 countries within 10 days

Registration of trademark or copyright work in the United Arab Emirates is voluntary right of author (or rightholder). The registration is compulsory only if you wish to be granted rights to a trademark or copyright work.

There are two legal ways to register your brand - as a trademark or as a copyright. The trademark and copyright registration have an equal legal power and both registrations are protecting your brand as an intellectual property work. The difference is in process of brand registration, registering bodies and law enforcement.

To choose the proper legal form of brand registration, your should determine the main target of brand using. If you want to participate in state tenders and work mostly with ministries and official authorities, we recommend to you register brand as a trademark. But for the businessmen, who sale goods and services on the open market for consumers (B2B, B2C) more efficient, cheaper and faster is register brand as a copyright.

Any legal entity can register a trademark or copyright in the United Arab Emirates.

Registered trademark will be under legal protection in the United Arab Emirates during 10 years since the date of official trademark registration. To keep trademark in force after 10 years the owner should pay additional official fees for further extension. The quantity of extensions for trademarks certificates is not limited.

Registered copyright work is protected in the United Arab Emirates through lifetime of an author and for a period of 50 years after the death of the author. The economic rights of the authors of joint work are protected through lifetime of the authors and for a period of 50 years after the death of the last surviving co-author.

In accordance with the Federal Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Article 2), the authors of works shall enjoy the protection provided for in this Decree-Law, if their rights are violated within the State.

The international convention regulates the protection area of the copyright law regarding foreign authors. In particular, the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works establishes that all citizens of the States acceding to the Convention, almost all the countries of the world, benefit of a similar protection offered by the country to its citizen and that this protection has to include minimum guarantees. Therefore, the citizens of the countries acceding the Convention who use their work in Italy benefit of the protection of the copyright law.

Author: The person who creates the work, or the person whose name is mentioned thereon or if, upon Publication, the Work is attributed to him as being the author thereof unless otherwise proven. Shall also be considered author, whoever publishes anonymous or pseudonymous work, or in any other manner, provided that there is no doubt as to the true identity of the Author; otherwise, the publisher or producer of the work, whether a physical or juristic person, shall be deemed as representing the Author in the exercise of his rights, until the true identity of the Author is recognised.

The Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, usually known as the Berne Convention, is an international agreement governing copyright, which was first accepted in Berne, Switzerland, in 1886. The Berne Convention formally mandated several aspects of modern copyright law; it introduced the concept that a copyright exists the moment a work is "fixed", rather than requiring registration. It also enforces a requirement that countries recognize copyrights held by the citizens of all other parties to the convention.

Yes, the United Arab Emirates joined to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works on July 14, 2004.

The laws regulating intellectual property in the United Arab Emirates are followings: Federal Law No. 36 of 2021 on Trademarks, Federal Law No. 11 of 2021 on the Regulation and Protection of Industrial Property Rights, Federal Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyright and Neighboring Rights.

There is no system of registration explicity provided for to obtrain copyright, since being to prove authorship of the work is sufficient. In order to do so, the authors may file registration with the Ministry of Economy of the United Arab Emirates or with any other private registry office.

A comprehensive copyright work study and search is an in-depth search against related intellectual property works (trademark, copyright works, designs, invention and etc.). This checks if the related intellectual property work is already in use or filed for registration by another person or legal entity. The comprehensive copyright work study and search can not give a 100% guarantee, but it minimizes the risks of possible infringements before filing registration.

A "poor man’s copyright" is the method of sending a copy of your intellectual work to yourself in order to establish that the material has been in your possession since a particular time. The truth is that there is no provision in the copyright laws regarding such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.

Using a brand logo that is not legally protected can pose great risks to business owner. If the brand logo is already in use by other manufacturers or service providers, then they can claim property rights for exclusive ownership of this intellectual property. Depending on the jurisdiction, illegal use of the brand logo can lead to both administrative and criminal penalties.

In accordance with the Federal Law No. 36 of 2021 on Trademarks (Article 49), the penalties include imprisonment and fines or either of them. Fines are between 100,000 AED to 1,000,000 AED for the following crimes:

• 1. Counterfeiting and imitating a registered trademark in a way causing confusion of the public;
• 2. Using a counterfeit or imitated mark for commercial purposes with knowledge;
• 3. Using in bad faith a trademark owned by another;
• 4. Possession of material for the imitation or counterfeit of a registered trademark;
• 5. Exporting or importing counterfeit products bearing infringed marks with knowledge.

A fine of 50,000 AED - 200,000 AED is stipulated in Article 50 for a) selling, offering or possession for selling of counterfeit/ infringing products or b) the use of a trademark that cannot be registered, on its business papers, commercial documents.

In accordance with the Federal Law No. 11 of 2021 on the Regulation and Protection of Industrial Property Rights (Article 49), the penalties include imprisonment and fines or either of them. In order to provide greater protection for intellectual property owners the fines are between 100,000 AED to 1,000,000 AED. The penalties, as stated in Article No. 69, apply for anyone who submits documents or provides incorrect or forged information to obtain a patent, a utility certificate, an industrial design, or a layout drawing of an integrated circuit, as well as anyone who imitates an invention or a manufacturing method, or willfully infringes any right protected by this Law.

In accordance with the Federal Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Article 39), the penalties include imprisonment and fines or either of them. Fines are between 10,000 AED to 100,000 AED for any person committing one of the following acts without written authorization:

• 1. Trespassing one of the moral or financial rights of the author or the holder of the related rights provided for in this Law, including putting any work, performance, sound recording or broadcast, protected pursuant to this Law, within the reach of the public, either through computers, internet, information and communication networks, or other means or devices;
• 2. Selling, renting or offering for circulation, in any manner, a work, sound recording, or broadcast protected under the provisions of this Law.

Penalties provided for in the Article 39 shall be repeated according to the number of incriminated works, performances, programs or sound recordings. In case of recurrence, the penalty shall be imprisonment for a minimum period of six months and a fine amounting to 100,000 AED at least and 500,000 AED at most.

In accordance with the Federal Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyright and Neighboring Rights (Article 40), the penalties include imprisonment and fines or either of them. The imprisonment period to six months and the fines are between 100,000 AED to 700,000 AED for any person committing any of the following acts:

• 1. Unduly manufacturing or importing, for the purpose of sale, rental or circulation, any counterfeited work or copies thereof, any apparatuses, equipment, devices or materials specially designed or prepared for defrauding protection or technology used by the author or holder of related right for transmitting, offering for circulation, regulating or managing such rights; or preserving a specific standard of purity of the copies;
• 2. Unduly disrupting or impairing any technical protection or electronic data aiming at regulating and managing the rights prescribed by this Law;
• 3. Downloading or storing in the computer any copy of the computer program or applications thereof or databases, without obtaining a license from the author or right holder or successors thereof.

In case of recurrence, the penalty shall be imprisonment for a minimum period of nine months and a fine amounting to 500,000 AED at least and 1,000,000 AED at most.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) is a 1998 United States copyright law that implements two 1996 treaties of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It criminalizes production and dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to circumvent measures that control access to copyrighted works (commonly known as digital rights management or DRM). It also criminalizes the act of circumventing an access control, whether or not there is actual infringement of copyright itself. In addition, the DMCA heightens the penalties for copyright infringement on the Internet.

Intellectual property rights registered with a trademark in the United Arab Emirates will be not protected outside the United Arab Emirates.

Intellectual property rights registered with a copyright in the United Arab Emirates will be protected in the United Arab Emirates and in 178 country-members of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works.

When you want to start a new business project with potential partners every member of founders' team should describe the form and money value of their contribution - money, land, equipment or IP. Usually in investment project there are at least 2 participating parties: author of business idea (often with product or service prototype) and investor, who will finance this project. And in the case with investor the value of his/her contribution is clear - there is real money, contract price of equipment or average rent rate of the land/venues, for authors of business ideas and IP-owners is too difficult to prove the real value of their intellectual contribution. Therefore - previously capitalized intellectual property work with concrete money value allows to IP-contributor of the project create the initial financial base for adequate negotiations with potential business partners concerning shares distribution.

Additionally capitalized intellectual property work (brands, website, mobile app, technologies, etc) in already existing legal entities could be used (instead of money physical assets) for forming the founding/authorized capital in new created daughter companies or any other forms of sub-divisions and affiliated structures.

The most interesting thing with capitalization is the fact, that valuated IP-assets could be used as a pledge for receiving bank credit or investment loan. Wide recognition of brand by customers, high-rated websites and mobile applications are representing today real values and stimulated sales and growth of the business. But the most common problem is lack of knowledge by intellectual property owners - they absolutely do not know how to present their money generated intangible assets as collateral for receiving the credits from financial institutions or loans from investors.

After increasing value of business through the capitalization of IP-assets owner in the case of sale his/her business to new owner can receive additional profit comparing to selling only physical assets. According to ROK laws such intangible assets as a corporate/product brand, clients data-base, trade secrets, web-site or mobile application could be sold only if they have properly formalized documents with valid protection of the intellectual property rights.

After achieving sustainable and profitable functioning of business in one city, usually owner of business is trying to create sub-divisions in other regions. Most efficient ways in this directions are licensing and franchising, while these legal forms of brands' territorial expansion do not need to spend own money for new company registration, buying of equipment and staff recruitment - all these expenses will be covered by franchisee. Accordingly, capitalized IP-assets in form of brand value allows to the brand's owner to put in the licensing/franchise agreements contract heightened rate of license/franchise fee.

Today is a common practice when you can be asked about the price of your business. Nice presentations and creative marketing materials are of course important for positive impact on the decision-making person, but afterwards is very difficult to prove your financial sustainability without serious money indicators of current business statement. High-valuated price of business can confirm reliability and confidence of your business. For capitalization of trademark and copyright you first to receive appropriate certificates and than attract specialists for conducting capitalization.

Yes, you can increase your founding registered capital of the company on the amount of capitalized intellectual property in form of intangible assets.

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