Ministry of Commerce and Industry celebrates ‘World Intellectual Property Day’

The Ministry of Commerce and Industry (MoCI) has celebrated ‘World Intellectual Property Day’ under the theme ‘Women & IP: Boosting Innovation and Creativity’.The event was held in the framework of the ministry’s commitment to reinforce dialogue on the importance of intellectual property and enhance its role in developing a positive environment for innovation and creativity.The celebration aims to highlight the government’s efforts in terms of intellectual property and the initiatives launched to provide necessary mechanisms to protect female innovators, whether inventors, authors, or producers of technical, artistic, or literary content.It also encourages female innovators for further creativity that fulfils Qatar National Vision 2030, which aims to make Qatar an advanced country able to achieve sustainable development and ensure its people decent living.Amna Jabir al-Kuwari, head of Intellectual Property Rights Protection Department at MoCI emphasised in her opening speech the importance of spreading awareness about intellectual property rights in Qatar, noting that the amount of participation in the event reflects how interested both trade and industry sectors are in raising awareness about IP rights to preserve the product of the human mind and innovation led by the youth in building a brighter future.She stressed on the role of IP in empowering female innovators, pointing to decision-makers’ interest in amending and updating IP legislation to match international practices.Al-Kuwari highlighted Qatar’s efforts to set a national intellectual property strategy in line with the 2030 national vision in terms of preparing national strategies and executive plans, and updating the institutional framework of the intellectual property department through the development of industrial models and drawings, as well as providing the department with young staff and train them to provide the best service to Qatari and foreign innovators and IP assets holders.In line with Qatar’s approach towards improving services provided, she explained that the IP department services digital transformation is in progress to facilitate and maintain rights registration from any violation.She noted that awareness programmes and spreading intellectual property norms is an interest to many through implementing the largest number of programmes and target audiences, whether school or college students, trade and industry sectors, and the legal community.Al-Kuwari stated that the allotment of the Trade and Investment Court, according to Law No 21 of 2021 to handle the disputes regarding patents, trademarks, industrial models, trade secrets, and other IP rights, is proof of the government’s interest in IP rights and the importance of solving related disputes without delay.She further pointed out that on an international level, Qatar’s membership in the Patent Co-operation Treaty (PCT) since 2011 is a window for local innovators towards 156 countries members in the treaty.Aside from access to a huge amount of technical information in multiple sectors to achieve general benefits from international treaties, MoCI is in the process of joining more international treaties that help innovators protect their assets of trademarks and industrial models in most countries.On the sidelines of the celebration, an accompanying exhibition was inaugurated, where the participants displayed their innovations in various fields. The ceremony witnessed panel discussions that highlighted crucial topics, most notably women’s role in intellectual property emergence and encouraging investments, and intellectual property’s role in life aspects.It also discussed intellectual property’s role in the national efforts to empower women to create a better future, the challenges and opportunities to improve the use of intellectual property systems by women, and inventors’ role in diversifying the economy, in addition to a display of success stories by Qatari women. Female innovators and entrepreneurs also participated in the accompanying exhibition and panel discussions participants were also held.It should be noted that ‘World Intellectual Property Day’ was first celebrated in 2000 with the aim of spreading the culture of intellectual property, raising people’s awareness, and encouraging them to innovate in the field of inventions, literary and artistic compilations, and offering them information by experts to protect their innovations.