SAUDI ARABIA Law and Practice Contributed by: Dana Halwani and Leanne Farsi, Derayah LLPC
protection document called an ”industrial design certificate”. Industrial designs are governed by the Patent, Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits, Plant Vari - eties, and Industrial Models Regulation. A pro - tection certificate shall be granted for an indus - trial model if it is novel and has features that distinguish it from known industrial models. The industrial model shall be deemed novel if it was not disclosed to the public through publication anywhere in a tangible form, by use or by any other means, prior to the date of filing the reg - istration application or the priority application. Protection is granted to the owner for ten years for an industrial design. The above-mentioned regulation gives the owner of an industrial mod - el protection certificate the right to initiate an action before the Commercial Courts against any person who infringes the industrial model by exploiting it for commercial purposes without their consent within the Kingdom through the manufacture, sale or importation of a product that includes or represents a wholly or substan - tially copied industrial model. Note that the procedure for applying for a pro - tection certificate for an industrial design is simi - lar to the procedure for registering a patent, as described in 7.1 Patents . 7.4 Copyright The Copyright Regulation (Royal Decree No M/41 of 2 Rajab 1424 Hejra corresponding to 30 August 2003) and its Implementing Rules define copyright protection to include architectural designs, speeches and theatrical, musical, pho - tographic and cinematographic works, as well as works for radio and television, maps, video tapes and computer software. The Regulation gives the author financial and moral rights to:
• print or publish the work; • make amendments or delete the work; • withdraw the work from circulation; and • assign the work as they wish. The SAIP has launched a copyright registration service for computer software, apps and archi - tectural designs. To register, applicants must complete the registration application on the SAIP website and pay the requisite examination fee. Upon successful registration, the copyright holder is issued a registration certificate. In general, the duration of protection afforded to different types of copyrighted works is as fol - lows: • protection of copyright for the author of a work lasts for the duration of their life and for 50 years following their death; • protection for works where the author is a corporate entity, or where their name is unknown, lasts 50 years from the date of the first publication of the work; • the protection period for sound works, audio- visual works, films, collective works and com - puter programs lasts 50 years from the date of the first show or publication of the work, regardless of republication; • protection for applied art (handcrafted or manufactured) and photographs lasts 25 years from the date of publication; • protection for broadcasting organisations lasts 20 years from the date of the first trans - mission of a programme or broadcast materi - als; and • protection for the producers of audio record - ings and performances lasts 50 years from the date of performance or the first recording, as the case may be.
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