Oman Implements The GCC Trademarks Law

On 25th July 2017, the Royal Decree No. 33 of 2017 promulgating the Law of Trademarks for the GCC States ("GCC Trademarks Law") was issued in Oman, and it came directly into effect after its publication. Oman has become the fourth GCC country to implement the GCC Trademarks Law. Nevertheless, Oman has yet to publish the implementing regulations of the GCC Trademarks Law; hence, it is not clear how this new law will be implemented in Oman.

As a background, the GCC Trademarks Law was initially submitted by the GCC General Secretariat and approved by the GCC Trade Cooperation Committee in 1987, but it was only used by the Member States for consultative purposed and there has been no direct application of the law. Further amendments were made in 2006 and 2013 and the law was published in the GCC Official Gazette. Nevertheless, the Trademark Law did not come into force, until the Implementing Regulations were issued in December 2015.

Since the issuance of the Implementing Regulations, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Kuwait have fully enforced the GCC Trademarks Law and it replaced their national trademarks law. Now that Oman has now implemented the GCC Trademarks Law as well, the UAE and Qatar are the remaining two states to left to implement it. Qatar issued Law No. 18 of 2007 ratifying the GCC Trademarks Law, which was later repealed by Law No. 7 of 2014 on 8 June 2014 which provides that it will automatically become effective in Qatar, six months after the issuance of the Implementing Regulations. Qatar has yet to publish the Implementing Regulations in its official gazette; hence the law has yet to come into force in Qatar. As for the UAE, it issued the Federal Decree No. 52 of 2007 ratifying the GCC Trademarks Law; however, no further ratification was made for the amended form of the GCC Trademarks Law of 2013. It still remains unclear when the UAE will issue or ratify the amended GCC Trademarks Law and its Implementing Regulations.

In this article we will highlight the main features of the GCC Trademarks Law that differ from the Oman national Trademarks law.

The Main Features of the GCC Trademarks Law:

Well-known Trademarks

The GCC Trademarks Law provides clear criteria as to the determination of well-known trademarks. Such criteria are similar to those provided by the WIPO Joint Recommendation Concerning Provisions on the Protection of Well-Known Marks. In summary, for a mark to be declared as well-known, consideration shall be taken for...