Dr. Eissa Al Enizi
Assistant Professor – College of Law – University of Kuwait

Abstract:

As a deficit has been proved in the provisions of national legislation, which posed a threat to the protection of trademarks, national texts governing the same trademark has reached a level of conflict, as some texts granted the trademark effective protection while others deprived it of that, international legislation intervened by enacting a number of international agreements, led by the Paris and TRIPS Conventions, drawing red lines which national legislation cannot ignore in order to ensure minimal protection of trademarks.
This research aims to highlight the most important effects of international agreements under study in the Gulf legislation, which is the unified Gulf law for the protection of trademarks, which in turn is reflected on the judiciary rulings in most of the Gulf countries, so that the international character began to dominate these legislation and provisions.
The importance of the research stems from the evaluation of the unified Gulf law and its use by the GCC countries as well as relevant international agreements in order to highlight the integrity of the investment environment for the use of trademarks in these countries. The research methodology is based on the analytical study of the texts of the relevant national and international legislation, and comparing them whenever possible. The main themes of the research are to study the international protection of the trademark through the Paris Convention, then through the TRIPS Agreement and their position within the provisions of the unified Gulf law, and then examine the impact of international conventions on the adaptation of the provisions of the unified Gulf law and the judgments in some GCC countries.
The most important results of the research are the benefit of international agreements in achieving a close convergence between the national legislation of the GCC countries and the jurisprudence. These agreements have contributed to the establishment of a safe investment environment in all member countries of these agreements. However, many steps are inevitable for the achievement of a complete security and protection of trademarks, including the establishment of a Gulf center for the protection of trademarks, the establishment of courts specialized in intellectual property, and increasing communication and raising awareness of both decision-makers and judges in the concerned courts.

Keywords: trademark, convention, Paris, TRIPS, unified Gulf law.

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