Egypt Approves Draft Law to Establish Intellectual Property Authority

In its weekly meeting on Wednesday, the Cabinet approved a draft law to establish the “Egyptian Intellectual Property Authority” as a public body specialized in regulating, caring for and protecting intellectual property rights in the country, in accordance with relevant international obligations, while working to employ the intellectual property system in a manner that ensures a balance between protecting rights, and achieving economic, social, cultural and technological development.

The decision stated that this step comes within the framework of seeking to govern the institutional structure of this file, as one of the goals of the National Intellectual Property Strategy (2022/27), which was launched last September, under the auspices of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi.

The draft law defines the terms of reference of the “Egyptian Authority for Intellectual Property”, so that it prepares and updates the national strategy for intellectual property, and sets up the necessary executive mechanisms to activate it and follow up on its implementation in cooperation with the relevant ministries and authorities, in addition to registering, recording, filing and granting protection documents to intellectual property rights as set forth in the Property Rights Protection Law.

In addition to preparing integrated rules for data and information on intellectual property rights, and employing them in developing the intellectual property system and making them available to all within the limits of the provisions of the aforementioned intellectual property protection law.

It also encourages researchers, inventors, startups, and owners of medium, small and micro projects, in coordination with the relevant authorities, to register their research outputs, inventions, creations, and other intellectual property rights, and to obtain the necessary protection documents for them, to maximize their exploitation and benefit from them economically.