The Gulf Cooperation Council Patent Office (GCCPO) recently announced that it started accepting new filings (Paris Convention applications), and performing formality and substantive examination pertaining to Qatar, subsequent to Bahrain and Kuwait.
Accordingly, the patent applicants have the option to select any or all three GCC states (Bahrain, Kuwait and Qatar) to file one application with the GCCPO.
Once the patent applications are examined and accepted, the GCC Patent Office will transfer these applications to the Qatari patent office for grant and publication.
One of the advantages of this filing strategy is to pay one set of fees for filing, substantive examination and responding to office actions when filing a patent application with the GCCPO, while the local official fees of each GCC state shall apply for the annuity and grant.
