What to know about patents issuance in Egypt

CAIRO - 5 April 2019: The Academy of Scientific Research and Technology is the entity in charge of issuing patents in Egypt. The following is all the information on patents and the documents needed to acquire them.

Patents are valid for 20 years and serve to inhibit the use, manufacturing, distribution, and selling of the invention, which can be a product, a solution or a work process, without the consent of the patent holder. Patents can be appealed and cancelled by the judiciary which is also responsible of ruling in cases where a patent is infringed. The holder can sell the patent to another or decide who can use his/her invention.

The researcher or innovator has to submit a request consisting of the invention’s details and the field it belongs to in addition to visuals such as designs, drawings, charts or graphs as well as the areas of protection to be included in the patent. The applicant must indicate if there are other countries where s/he wants the patent to be valid. The process is coordinated by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) so as every country indicated in the request makes a decision to either approve or disapprove.

The applicant can hire a licensed patent agent to properly phrase the request and make sure all requirements are fulfilled. The request takes minimum 12 months to be processed. Patents for inventions in certain fields such as pharmaceuticals may not be renewed. If multiple applicants submit requests for the same invention before a decision is made, the patent is granted to the applicant who made the request first. The same condition applies if the applicant wants the patent to be valid in foreign countries.