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Iran is a member of WIPO organization
and a party to Paris convention. Its first IP law dates
back to more than 70 years ago.
According to article 26 of the Iranian
Trademarks & Patents Act, any invention or
discovery in various fields of industry or agriculture shall
confer upon the inventor or discoverer a patent, under which
they have exclusive right to benefit from the invention or
discovery, in accordance with the terms, conditions and for
the period prescribed by the act, provided that the invention
or discovery is duly registered in accordance with the Iranian
law. Duration of a patent ranges, upon the applicant’s
request, between 10, 15 and 20 years, starting from filing
date.
In case of infringement, the owner of a
patent may sue unauthorized users of their invention. A
successful plaintiff in a patent infringement action may
expect two possible remedies:
1-
An
Injunction against further infringement.
2-
An
award of monetary damages including potential profits of which
the plaintiff has been deprived.
Anyone applying for a patent based on
a foreign application/patent, may be granted a patent for a
period of 20 years from the application date or for the
remaining term of validity of the basic patent, respectively.
The competent authority for grant of patents and registration
of changes thereto, is the Registration Department for
Companies and Industrial Property, which is affiliated with
the State Organization for Registration of Deeds and
Properties of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Registration procedures, normally take
approximately 5 to 7 months, depending on the workload at the
office. Iran’s patent system is declarative and applications
are examined as to form and novelty. Therefore, according to
article 36, a patent shall not attest that an invention is
novel, practicable, genuine nor the applicant or his
representative is the actual inventor, or the descriptions or
drawings therein are true. Therefore, an interested party may
establish the contrary in the Public Court of Tehran.
In case an application for patent is
rejected by the IIPO, the applicant may appeal the said
decision in the Public Court of Tehran within ten days. On the
other hand, if the application is accepted, a patent will be
granted and will be published in the Official Gazette within
30 days.
Any interested party may apply for
annulment of a patent, in the public court of Tehran
establishing any of the followings:
1-
The
invention is not novel.
2-
The
patent has been obtained contrary to the provisions of the law
regarding non-patentable issues.
3-
The
invention or discovery is of purely scientific and theoretical
nature and has no practical use in industry, agriculture or
etc.
4-
No
practical use has been made of the invention within 5 years
since granting of the patent.
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