Her Excellency Dr. Hind bint Abdul Rahman Al-Muftah, Ambassador and Permanent Representative of the State of Qatar to the United Nations Office and other international organizations in Geneva, met with His Excellency Mr. Darren Tang, Director-General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, on May 3 to present the State of Qatar’s instrument of accession to Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Trademarks. the meeting was also attended by Mr. Ahmed Issa Al Sulaiti, Director of the State of Qatar’s Office to the World Trade Organization and other economic organizations in Geneva, and Mr. Qasim Darwish Fakhro, Commercial Attaché at the Office.
The Madrid Protocol aims to achieve international legal protection for trademarks by submitting the application in one country. This constitutes a very important step for businesses and entrepreneurs in Qatar who wish to expand the protection of their trademarks internationally and protect their IPs through one application, in one language (English, French, or Spanish) and by paying one payment of fees in one currency. The Treaty guarantees benefits such as maintaining and renewing the registration, registering and transfering ownership of the international registration to others or changing the name and/or address or other data in a single procedure that applies to all designated Contracting Parties.
Qatar ranks 50th among the 132 economies featured in the GII 2023
This step comes as part of a series of initiatives led by the State of Qatar within its National Development Vision 2030 to strengthen frameworks for protecting IP rights and build an attractive economy to foreign investments. In 2023, Qatar ranked 50th out of 132 economies listed in the WIPO’s Global Innovation Index (GII).
Moreover, Qatar has recently strengthened its strategic partnership with WIPO through a number of MoUs and joint academic programs directed to students and young experts to develop their knowledge in the field of intellectual property and develop expertise in the field of resolving disputes related to intellectual property. In addition to joining various treaties of the organization, such as the Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organizations, the Beijing Treaty on Audiovisual Performances, the Budapest Treaty Concerning the International Recognition of the Deposit of Microorganisms for the Purposes of Patent Procedures, and the Marrakesh Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works for Persons Who Are Blind, Visually Impaired or Otherwise Print Disabled, and the Brussels Treaty on the Distribution of Program-Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite.
