A special committee has been set up to amend the UAE's patent law to cover new areas such as electrical industries as well as integrated circuits used in the IT and electronics sector.

The proposed new provisions would cover biological agents used in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries as well as integrated circuits used in the IT and electronics industry, Adel E H Oweida, an expert at the Ministry of Economy's Intellectual Property Office, told Emirates Business.

"Currently biological organisms and plants are protected in the UAE under a special rule," he said. "Strong intellectual property protection and protection of industrial designs are needed to attract foreign investors to the UAE. We are going to introduce new legislation for this purpose.

"The current intellectual protection rule in the UAE was introduced after the country signed the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (Trips) agreement. It did not include integrated circuits or plant breeding technologies and biotechnological components."

The proposed amendments may also address an ambiguity between the UAE patent application procedure and the GCC patent documentation procedure.

"While the UAE does not give any grace period after submission of a patent application in the local office, the GCC patent office in Riyadh gives a grace period of three months. This allows for public disclosure without affecting the validity of a subsequent patent application."

The Ministry is also trying to boost the human resources needed to handle patent office and reengineering processes and set up state-of-the-art technical laboratories within the UAE.

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