Change on the way in the Gulf states

Each Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) patent application, as required by international standards, has to fulfil the usual requirements of novelty, inventiveness and industrial applicability. In this regard, article 2/1 of the 1999 Patent Regulation of the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Gulf states that: “An invention shall be patentable according to the provisions of this regulation and its bylaws if it is new, involves an inventive step, is industrially applicable and is not contrary to the laws of Islamic Sharia, or public order or to morality observed in the Cooperation Council states, whether that was pertaining to new products, industrial processes, or to manufacturing methods.”