“The Middle East continues to experience significant growth in innovation, technology, life sciences, healthcare, artificial intelligence, luxury goods, and creative industries. We regularly work alongside foreign associates and independent practitioners to help their clients navigate the region’s evolving legal and regulatory landscape, secure their IP assets, and develop effective enforcement and commercialisation strategies.
“We chose to become a FICPI sponsor because we strongly believe in the organisation’s mission of supporting and advancing the interests of independent intellectual property practitioners worldwide. FICPI provides a unique platform where leading IP professionals can exchange knowledge, discuss emerging developments, and build meaningful international relationships.”
Thank you for choosing to sponsor FICPI. What prompted your decision?
As a sponsor, we value the opportunity to support an organisation that consistently promotes excellence, collaboration, and innovation within the profession. Equally important is the calibre of its membership. FICPI brings together some of the most experienced and respected IP practitioners globally, creating an environment where discussions are strategic, commercially relevant, and highly beneficial for both sponsors and members.
We are committed to building trusted relationships with leading independent practitioners around the world. FICPI provides an ideal platform for this, bringing together highly respected and carefully selected IP professionals who share a common commitment to excellence, independence, and the delivery of high-quality client service.
Why have you chosen FICPI to sponsor rather than another IP organisation?
FICPI stands apart from many other IP organisations because of the quality and seniority of its membership. The organisation maintains high standards for admission and is recognised for bringing together leading independent IP professionals from around the world. This creates a network that is both highly credible and exceptionally valuable.
For us, sponsoring FICPI is not simply about visibility, it is about engaging with the right audience. Because the membership is carefully selected and comprised largely of senior decision-makers and experienced practitioners, networking is far more focused and productive. Regardless of whom you meet at a FICPI event, you are engaging with professionals who are actively involved in shaping IP strategy, advising key clients, and influencing developments within the profession.
This level of access, engagement, and connectivity is difficult to replicate elsewhere and makes FICPI a natural choice for our sponsorship efforts.
Could you introduce us to Al Tamimi and tell us more about your operations?
Our organisation is one of the leading law firms in the Middle East and is home to one of the region’s largest and most comprehensive intellectual property practices. At Al Tamimi we advise clients across the full spectrum of IP rights, including patents, trade marks, copyrights, designs, trade secrets, enforcement, anti-counterfeiting, transactional, licensing, commercialisation, regulatory matters, and complex IP disputes. We support multinational corporations, innovators, brand owners, and rights holders throughout MENA, including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Iraq.
What distinguishes our practice is the breadth and depth of our IP offering. Unlike many firms that provide purely legal services, our IP team is multidisciplinary and includes not only specialist IP lawyers, but also qualified patent attorneys, scientists, technical experts, investigators, litigators, and data analysts. This enables us to provide a truly integrated and well-rounded service, combining legal, technical, commercial, and enforcement expertise to address the increasingly complex challenges faced by rights holders.
What opportunities and challenges do you see for IP practitioners and rights holders in MENA?
The Middle East presents significant opportunities for IP practitioners as governments continue to invest heavily in innovation, technology, healthcare, artificial intelligence, and creative industries. This has led to stronger IP frameworks, increased enforcement activity, and growing demand for sophisticated IP protection and commercialisation strategies.
At the same time, the region remains diverse, with each jurisdiction maintaining its own legal and regulatory requirements. Navigating these differences, particularly in relation to registration, enforcement, and regulatory compliance, requires strong local knowledge and trusted regional support.
For international IP attorneys, this creates valuable opportunities to collaborate with local counsel and help clients effectively protect, enforce, and maximise the value of their IP assets across a rapidly evolving and commercially important region.
How is your firm using AI?
AI is having a meaningful impact on our internal operations and the services we deliver to clients. As a firm, we are very tech-savvy and were early adopters of AI. We continuously invest in and refine our AI capabilities to enhance efficiency, improve accuracy, and help deliver faster and more insightful legal services.
AI tools assist us in streamlining tasks such as legal research, document review, data analysis, and portfolio management. Our multidisciplinary IP team, which includes lawyers, scientists, and data analysts, is particularly well positioned to leverage AI in delivering a more integrated and efficient service offering.
For clients, AI creates significant opportunities in terms of cost efficiency, speed of execution, and deeper analysis of large and complex IP portfolios. It also enhances our ability to identify risks, monitor infringements, and develop more proactive enforcement and commercialisation strategies.
AI is improving the way we work internally but is also enabling us to deliver more sophisticated, data-driven, and value-oriented IP solutions to our clients.
What benefits have you found from being a FICPI member?
My involvement with FICPI has been both professionally rewarding and personally enriching. One of the greatest benefits of membership is access to a global network of highly respected and experienced IP practitioners who are leaders in their jurisdictions. Unlike larger organisations where the membership base can be very broad, FICPI offers a more focused and curated network.
FICPI also provides excellent opportunities to stay informed about international developments in intellectual property law and practice.
What benefits have you found from attending previous FICPI Open Forum, Congresses, webinars and networking opportunities?
Our experience of FICPI events has been exceptionally positive. The Open Fora and Congresses consistently deliver a combination of high-quality technical content, thought leadership, and meaningful networking opportunities. The discussions are relevant, practical, and focused on the key issues affecting IP practitioners and their clients.
What truly differentiates FICPI events is the quality of the audience. The membership is carefully selected and comprises highly experienced practitioners, making networking is far more streamlined and productive than at many larger industry events.
The quality of interactions is consistently high, and the relationships formed are often with senior professionals who are directly involved in client management, strategic decision-making, and complex IP matters.
There is a genuine sense that every conversation can lead to valuable knowledge-sharing, collaboration, or future opportunities.
Thank you Ahmad, we look forward to seeing you and Jincy Thomas, Senior Associate, at the FICPI Open Forum in Budapest (16-19 September 2026).