JEDDAH: The excessive number of organizations allowed to rule on issues concerning intellectual property rights in the Kingdom has weakened the application of laws and regulations concerning it, a legal expert has claimed.
Majed Garoub was speaking before the third symposium on the laws of the intellectual property rights which opened Tuesday at the Jeddah Chamber of Commerce and Industry and will continue for two days.
“The aggression against the intellectual property rights cost the Saudi economy billions of riyals every year,” he said. Local and foreign experts are participating in the symposium being organized by the Saudi Law Training Center (SLTC) in collaboration with the Ministry of Culture and Information.
Garoub, the chairman of the center and an expert in arbitration, said the bodies concerned with issues relating to intellectual property rights in Saudi Arabia included the Ministries of Culture and Information, Commerce and Industry, Rural and Municipal Affairs, the Department of Customs, King Abdul Aziz City for Science and Technology and the Court of Grievances.
“There are more than 100,000 cases of intellectual property rights now being investigated by all these bodies. This has prolonged the litigation period and made it difficult to follow up the cases,” he said.
The two-day symposium under the title: “Litigation and Compensation In Intellectual Property Rights,” will address a number of issues pertaining to intellectual property rights including: patent, trade marks, copy rights, the settlement of cases and other issues. “The intellectual property rights, with its two divisions of arts and industry, is an integral part of human life in science, culture, food, medicine, engineering, electronics, furniture, perfumes, clothes and others,” Garoub said. He lauded the role of the SLTC in spreading awareness about intellectual property rights in Saudi Arabia and said society is now fully aware of them.
Garoub said the center has signed agreements and MOUs with a number of universities and law centers in various parts of the world in order to exchange expertise and trainees.
He said an agreement signed with King Abdul Aziz University enabled the center to organize a number of programs and study courses in criminal, commercial, civil and administrative law.
The supervisor of domestic media in the Ministry of Culture and Information Abdul Rahman Al-Hazza told the symposium that the ministry was giving great care to the question of copyrights in all aspects of audio-visual artistic production. “The ministry has been very keen to protect intellectual production since the law of publications was first issued about 28 years ago,” he added.
Al-Hazza said the ministry was monitoring the Kingdom’s 20 air, land and sea entry points as a part of its efforts to protect copyrights. “We also make inspection tours to market places and among peddlers looking for any violations in this area,” he added.
He revealed that the ministry had established a committee on copyrights under the chairmanship of the undersecretary of the ministry; the committee is composed of experts in law, Islamic Shariah and information and is charged with protecting the material and moral rights of authors and writers.
