IP OVERVIEW OF IRAN

Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, is a sovereign state in Western Asia. It is bordered to the northwest by Armenia, the de facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and Azerbaijan; to the north by Kazakhstan and Russia across the Caspian Sea; to the northeast by Turkmenistan; to the east by Afghanistan and Pakistan; to the south by the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman; and to the west by Turkey and Iraq.

Iran is a member of the WIPO since 2001 and has acceded to several WIPO intellectual property treaties. It joined the Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (Paris Convention) in 1959. In December 2003, Iran became a party to the Madrid Agreement and the Madrid Protocol for the International Registration of Marks. In 2005, Iran joined the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and their International Registration In 2007, Iran's parliament approved becoming signatory to the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

Patent

In Iran, the first person to apply for the registration of an invention in accordance with the law is considered the inventor of the patent.

Patents are registered for 5, 10, 15 or 20 years, at the option of the applicant, and the registered patent will be vulnerable to cancellation if it is not worked during the five-year period following its date of granting.

To register a patent, the documents must be presented to the Patent Office within six months of the date of the Iranian application. This period of duration may be renewed once for a justifiable excuse. If the patent office refuses an application because of insufficient documentation or because the application is contrary to the governing provisions, the patent applicant has the legal right to refer, personally or through a lawyer, to a competent court and ask for the cancellation of the patent office decision.

Trademark

In Iran, registration gives an owner the exclusive right to use a trademark on the goods for which the trademark is registered. The owner may prevent other parties from using the trademark on competing products.

Any trademark, whether already registered or being presented for registration, may be contested a trademark has not been used in Iran or abroad within three years from the registration date and if the owner or his legal representative fails to furnish a valid reason, any interested party may apply to the court and request cancellation of trademark.

To register a trademark, an applicant (Iranian or foreign) should refer in person or through an attorney to the Registration Office for Industrial Property, in Tehran, and file a request for obtaining a certificate of trademark registration. Applications are published in the official gazette so that interested parties may inspect and, The registrar examines applications for format, content and consistency in compliance with the relevant rules of registration.

Copyright

In Iran, the following items are registrable: books, pamphlets, plays and all other literary, scientific and artistic writings. audiovisual works for stage or screen performances or for broadcasting by radio and television; paintings, pictures, drawings, designs, decorative writings, geographical maps or any decorative and imaginative work produced in any simple or complex manner; sculptures of all types; architectural works, designs, sketches and buildings; photographic works produced by any original methods; original articles of applied handicraft and industrial art, carpet and rug designs; original works based on folklore and national heritage of culture and arts.

The financial rights of the author are transferred to his heirs, or by covenant, for a period of 30 years after his death. In the absence of such heirs or a transfer by covenant, the Ministry of Culture and Arts will hold the rights for public use for the same period of time. In July 2010, the Iranian Parliament (Majlis) modified the country's copyright law, granting authors or creators of an original work permanent right to copy, distribute and adapt the work.