RIYADH, 18 July — King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and the German federal agency, GTZ, signed here yesterday two consultancy contracts worth around SR 10 million (around 2.5million euros) for technical cooperation in the fields of information technology and patents.
The agreement was signed on behalf of KACST by Dr.Saleh Al-Athel, president, and for GTZ by Dr. Mario Sander, Resident Representative of GTZ in Saudi Arabia. Shaya Al-Shaya, director general of patents, KACST, and Dr. Fahad Al-Hoymany, director of Internet Services Unit, were also present.
The consultancy contract has two components. The first relates to patents protection as called for by the World Trade Organization(WTO). The second contract concerns developing the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI), a set of hardware, software and services that enable the secure exchange of data and transactions over the Internet in a manner that allows the identity of the source/sender to be authenticated. It is a key element in the development of e-commerce.
Describing it as an important agreement, Dr. Sander said it would go a long way in fulfulling the requirements of the WTO in terms of patents protection. He said that besides KACST, GTZ has ongoing cooperation agreements with the ministries of health, planning, public works and housing. Other public sector organizationsi nclude the Saudi Ports Authority, General Organization of Technical Education and Vocational Training, the Saudi Telecommunications Company and King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah. Around 40 GTZ experts have been seconded to the seorganizations on a long-term basis. They are in addition to a number of short-term experts providing technical assistance as and when required.
Later, Shaya Al-Shaya told Arab News that under the three-year agreement between GTZ and KACST, there will be cooperation between the German Patents Office and the directorate of patents at KACST in on-the-job-training program and exchange of visits between officials of the two organizations.The agreement calls for setting up three divisions for the protection of industrial and layout designs as well as new varieties of plants produced in research centers around the world. The idea is to prevent the replication of such plants by duplicating the method of cultivation and thus depriving researchers of the benefits of their research.
The other field is the protection of designs related to integrated circuits, specifically the microchip. Accordingly, no import of microchips will be allowed by the customs without the permission of the patents holder. This is in addition to the development of procedures for registration of patents. So far 55 patents have been issued since 1989 in different fields, including oil, pharmaceutical, petrochemical and industrial sectors. They were out of over 10,000 patenta pplications that were filed.
The patent holders are multinational firms from different countries, includinng some from the Kingdom. As for the second component of the consultancy contract in the IT field, Dr. Hoymany said it is of one-year duration. "The idea behind PKI is that you need to establish trust between the parties engaged in any kind of transaction." He said KACST has been mandated by a Royal Decree with the task of buildingi nfrastructure for the PKI. It is the first step required for promoting e-commerce and for online delivery of government services in the Kingdom. He pointed out that PKI is emerging as an element of all government systems deployment and can be used to support a range of security services required by the government for authentication services of data origin and / or user. Its other applications include integrity services to detect modification of datas well as control services, so that identified entities do not exceed their authorized level of access and services.
