KUWAIT Law and Practice Contributed by: Sam Habbas, Luis Cunha, Hisham Al-Quraan and Mustafa Sayed, ASAR – Al Ruwayeh & Partners
• seeking damages (see Article 41 (1) and (2) of the TM Law); and • filing an application with the Customs Department to prevent the entry of counterfeit goods (see Arti - cle 38 of the TM Law). Of significance, a complainant should file a substan - tive action with the relevant court within 20 days of the granting of a precautionary order/injunctive relief. 7.3 Industrial Designs Industrial designs are also protected in Kuwait (but not separately defined, strictly speaking) under Law No 4 of 1962 (the Patent, Designs and Industrial Models Law), Article 35 of which provides that “any arrange - ment of lines or any type of figure, whether coloured or uncoloured, designed for use in industrial production by a mechanical, manual or chemical process shall be considered a design or industrial model” (informal translation). Although industrial designs are regulated similarly to patents, they are subject to certain differ - ent rules. For example: • the initial protection period for industrial designs is ten years from the application date; • industrial designs may be renewed for one further period of five years; and • industrial models are registered with the PTO on the Register of Designs and Industrial Models. 7.4 Copyright The Copyright Law governs copyright issues and defines a “work” as “any creative literary, artistic or scientific work of whatever kind, expression, impor - tance or purpose” (informal translation), and provides for the protection thereof. Article 23 of the Copyright Law provides that copyright protections will typically endure for the lifetime of the author and for 50 years after the author’s death; additional considerations may apply, depending on the nature of the work and the author involved (joint works, juristic entities, etc). Certain limited exceptions from the copyright protec - tion are provided for (copying short portions for edu - cational purposes, etc). A party seeking to protect its copyright does not need to register the copyright locally in order for it to be granted protection under the Copyright Law;
however, it may wish to apply and file a request with the Kuwait National Library (KNL) to deposit works sought to be protected in order to enhance the abil - ity to evidence the author’s entitlement to copyright protection. The KNL is authorised to accept applica - tions for the deposit of works from authors or crea - tors, their descendants or their official representatives. Only one classification of work will be allowed for each application. If the material is accepted for deposit, the KNL will classify the material and issue a certificate indicating the serial number, the date of deposit and an international classification. Under Article 35 of the Copyright Law, a complainant may petition a court to grant interim relief (an order restricting the publication, presentation, performance or copying of the work for a certain period of time, seizure of the revenue generated from the exploitation of the work, etc) when there is a violation of any rights stipulated under the Copyright Law. Significantly, a complainant should file a substantive action with the relevant court within 15 days of the granting of the While certain laws protect trade secrets (eg, the Com - panies Law restricts directors from sharing company secrets), there is no formal registry for such informa - tion. While a database can enjoy protection under the Cop - yright Law, depending on its nature, the authorities have not issued a directive as to the basis on which software is protected. Depending on the type/format of the software, possible arguments can be made that it should be protected under copyright or as a patent. In this regard, the Copyright Law expressly provides for the protection of “computer programs” but, as provided in 7.1 Patents , the Patent Law states that patents “shall be granted in accordance with the pro - visions of this Law for any new invention which is uti - lisable in industry, whether it concerns a new industrial product, original industrial process and techniques or a new application of know industrial process or tech - niques” (informal translation), and it is conceivable that certain software could also satisfy this language in the Patent Law. interim relief. 7.5 Others
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