Member States of GCC Patent Regulation: United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar and Kuwait.

The Patent Regulation of the Gulf Cooperation Council (hereafter referred to as GCC) is a regional system for protection of patents in the six member States of the Gulf Cooperation Council. It is designed to unify patent registration and protection in the jurisdictions covered by the member States, as well as in various fields including economic and financial affairs, commerce, customs and communications, education and culture, social and health affairs, information and tourism, legislative and administrative affairs. Applications filed under the GCC Patent System at the GCC Patent Office in Riyadh cannot be filed in individual GCC member States. The Patent Office started accepting applications for patent registration in October 1998.

Note: the GCC Patent Office (GCCPO) previously announced that from January 6, 2021, it was no longer accepting new patent application filings. From January 2023, the GCC Patent Office once again started accepting applications. At the time of writing, only Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait have confirmed that they will refer their national applications to the GCC Patent Office.

Remarks on IP legislation: the GCC Trademark Law and Implementing Regulations have been issued and became effective in December 2015. However, it will also need to be enacted by the legislature of each GCC State. The GCC Trademark Law is a unifying, not a unitary law setting out a single set of provisions which will apply uniformly across all GCC States with respect to the registrability, registration and enforcement of trademark rights. It does not provide for a single (unitary) registration or enforcement system. The Trademark Office of each GCC State will continue to receive applications and register trademarks on a national basis. Registering a trademark in all six GCC States will still require filing six separate national trademark applications and may be subject to different interpretations of the Law.