Foreign patent applications outnumber local 10 to 1

AMMAN — Patent applications filed by foreigners in the Kingdom substantially outnumbered patent applications filed by Jordanians in 2016, with over 10 times as many non-Jordanian applications, according to official figures. 

There were 256 foreign patent applications filed with the Ministry of Industry and Trade’s Industrial Property Protection Directorate, compared to only 22 local applications, the directorate’s statistics show.

Also in 2016, foreigners successfully registered 115 patents, 19 times more than the six local patents. 

In the first third of 2017, 92 foreigners applied for patents, compared to 10 Jordanian applicants, while 28 patents were successfully registered for foreigners and only one for a Jordanian.

Regarding regulatory developments in 2016, Zain Al Awamleh, Director of the Industrial Property Protection Directorate, told The Jordan Times that the directorate initiated a national strategy for intellectual property, while also joining the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

“On June 9th, 2017, Jordan will become the 152th member of the PCT, which is a procedure treaty that helps local inventors and facilitates the application procedure for patent filing and invention protection in all 151 member countries, excluding Jordan,” Awamleh said.

She also said that the directorate has launched several initiatives, including the signing of an agreement to build a Technology and Innovation Support Centre in cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organisation, an electronic process to archive patents, as well as the creation of an e-mail for intellectual property agents to ensure they receive the directorate›s updates.

Despite a lack of accurate statistics on the subject, Awamleh noted that approximately 25 to 30 per cent of applications filed in Jordan are registered worldwide, according to Jordanian applications and patents published on international websites.

The director added that there are many foreign applications registered with the Jordanian department, citing 2,464 applications filed between 2010 and 2017, with 522 patents granted. 

The local patent applications are 80 per cent engineering and 20 per cent pharmaceutical , while the foreign applications are 90 per cent pharmaceutical  and 10 per cent engineering.