Initiative Of Intellectual Property Respect Officer Launched With Participation Of More Than 70 Government Agencies

The Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property launched the initiative of the Intellectual Property Respect Officer in
the presence of the Chief Executive Officer, Dr. Abdulaziz bin Muhammad Al-Swailem, a number of the Authority’s leaders and 70 representatives of government agencies that are partners in implementing the initiative. Through this initiative, SAIP seeks to raise compliance with the laws and regulations related to intellectual property in the government sector through qualifying and training employees from every government agency.

SAIP indicated that the initiative aims to raise awareness of intellectual property rights and adhere to them, activate self-inspection of government agencies, strengthening the partnership between the authority and government agencies, in addition to facilitating the publication of new developments in the matter of intellectual property, explaining that this initiative has a working methodology that starts from training officials to respect intellectual property through measuring the baseline for the current status of the entities, follow-up and support, and ending with periodic measurements to those agencies.

SAIP has set a period of 36 days to qualify officials for respecting intellectual property. During this period, several programs are provided under the supervision of the Academy of Intellectual Property and in cooperation with the World Intellectual Property Organization until the end of the qualification process by issuing a license for the IP Respect Officers.

The introductory workshop was concluded by defining the tasks of the IP respect officers represented in working as an intellectual property advisor, developing intellectual property policies at each entity, following up on developments in intellectual property and educating workers, in addition to the responsibility of communicating with the entity he represents, and the official will also be concerned with making reports and questionnaires on intellectual property, and to ensure that the entity he represents adheres to the intellectual property laws and regulations, specifically the copyright protection system, which includes ensuring the use of computer programs, software licenses, literary works, books, publications, research and audio and visual works. Through this initiative, SAIP aims to become more proactive in preventing violations from occurring.