Protecting IP rights in Iran

he new Patent and Trademark Law is before the Assembly and is waiting to be ratified to comply with the WIPO standards for the registration and protection of patents and trademarks. In the meantime, the Islamic Republic of Iran has already deposited with the Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), its instrument of accession to both the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol Concerning the International Registration of Marks. This was done on 25th September 2003.

The Trademark Office has also applied the eighth edition of the International Classification of Goods and Services, bringing the total to 45 classes as of 31st May 2003. According to the new classification, the local class 35, which used to include all service marks, divided into 11 service mark classes. Trademark applications for goods in class 33 remain unacceptable.

Trademark owners are advised to file Iranian applications based on a home or any other foreign registration. Otherwise, it must be mentioned in the application that no registration has been granted for the mark in home or foreign country. Filing the Iranian application based on a foreign registration will be the evidence of prior and continuous use of the trademark.