Intellectual property in Kuwait rests on three statutory pillars. Copyright and related rights follow Law No. 75 of 2019 on Copyright and Related Rights, published in the Official Gazette on 28 July 2019, which repealed Law No. 64 of 1999. Trademarks follow the GCC Trademark Law, approved in Kuwait by Law No. 13 of 2015 and implemented by Ministerial Decision No. 500 of 2015. Patents, utility models and industrial designs remain under Law No. 4 of 1962, as amended by Law No. 3 of 2001. Kuwait belongs to the World Trade Organization, the Paris and Berne Conventions, in force for Kuwait since 2 December 2014, and the Patent Cooperation Treaty, but not the Madrid Protocol. This article explains how ownership is established, marks registered, licenses written and rights enforced.
The Kuwaiti IP framework at a glance
Three institutions share the daily work. The Ministry of Commerce and Industry administers trademark and patent filings. The National Library of Kuwait receives voluntary deposits of works under Article 38 of Law 75 of 2019, and the National Council for Culture, Arts and Letters safeguards national folklore under Article 5 and licenses collective management bodies under Article 34. The General Administration of Customs acts at the border under Article 37 of Law 75 of 2019 and Article 38 of the GCC Trademark Law.
Foreign rights holders should note two points. Article 2 of Law 75 of 2019 extends copyright protection to nationals of Berne Convention or WIPO member states and to works first published in a member state, so most foreign businesses are covered without any filing. And because Kuwait is outside the Madrid System, an international registration cannot designate Kuwait; brand owners file national applications, and our standing advice is to run the Kuwaiti filing as a separate project with its own search, budget and renewal calendar.
Copyright arises on creation, without formalities
Article 3 of Law 75 of 2019 protects original literary, artistic and scientific works upon their mere creation, without any formality. The statutory list is wide: written materials, lectures, dramatic works, broadcasts, fine and applied art, photographs, audiovisual works, music, maps, plans and architectural works, economic feasibility studies, collective, joint and derivative works, original databases, and computer programs in any language. Protection covers the aesthetic features of a design, not its functional character.
Article 4 draws the boundary: ideas, procedures, methods of work, mathematical concepts, principles, discoveries and data are not protected, nor are official texts of a legislative, administrative or judicial nature, daily news or single words and short phrases. The statute protects the expression, the code, the text and the image, never the underlying business idea. Because no registration exists, the practical work is evidentiary: dated source files, drafts and contracts later prove who created what and when.
Who owns the work: employees, contractors and collective works
Article 27 of Law 75 of 2019 decides most ownership disputes. A work created for the account of another person belongs to the creating author unless otherwise agreed in writing. An employee who creates a work in the course of employment, in relation to the employer's activities or using the employer's expertise, tools or materials, produces a work that belongs to the employer, unless otherwise agreed in writing; a work unconnected to the employer's business and created without its resources belongs to the employee. An agency logo or a contractor's software remains with its creator until a signed document says otherwise.
Two further rules matter in group structures. Under Article 25, the person who directed the creation of a collective work and assumed responsibility for producing it alone exercises the author's rights in it, unless otherwise agreed in writing. Under Article 26, co-authors of a joint work are equal partners in the economic rights unless agreed otherwise, and none may exploit the work individually without written agreement. When we review a chain of title, we read these defaults against every contract, because an unsigned assumption is where Kuwaiti copyright disputes begin.
Disposing of rights: written assignments and their limits
Article 11 of Law 75 of 2019 sets the form: a disposal of economic rights must be in writing and must specify each right separately, with its extent, purpose, duration and place. A license of one economic right is not a license of the others. Article 13 adds that selling the original copy of a work transfers none of the economic rights, and Article 12 binds purchasers of computer programs to the license terms affixed to the program or shown on screen, unless those terms offend public order or morals.
Article 15 voids any disposal by an author of the whole of his future intellectual output, so drafters must describe works and fields precisely. The moral rights in Article 6, attribution, first publication, integrity and the choice of a pseudonym, may not be waived or attached, and any disposal of them is null. Under Article 7 an author may ask the Court of First Instance to withdraw the work from circulation, subject to compensating the assignee. License drafting in Kuwait works inside statutory walls that no clause can move.
How long protection lasts
Article 23 of Law 75 of 2019 sets the economic term at the author's lifetime plus fifty years from the first of January of the year following death; for joint works the fifty years run from the last survivor's death. Works whose author is a legal person, collective and audiovisual works, anonymous and pseudonymous works and works published after the author's death are protected for fifty years from first lawful publication. Applied art and photographic works enjoy fifty years from first publication regardless of republication, and each part or volume published in installments counts separately.
Related rights under Article 24 run for fifty years for performers and for producers of sound recordings, and twenty years for broadcasting organizations. Moral rights expire with the economic rights under Article 22, except attribution, which is perpetual. For acquirers and licensees these dates are commercial data: a license that outlives the protected term buys nothing, and a catalog valuation depends on counting the years correctly.
Trademark registration under the GCC Trademark Law
Kuwait approved the GCC Trademark Law by Law No. 13 of 2015 and applied it through implementing regulations issued by Ministerial Decision No. 500 of 2015 on 20 December 2015. Applications are filed with the competent authority at the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. Article 1 defines a mark broadly, covering names, words, signatures, drawings, packaging, shapes, colors and combinations, and expressly allows sound and smell marks. Article 3 bars signs devoid of distinctive character, customary names and marks contrary to public order or morality, and Article 4 protects well-known marks, refusing registration of identical or similar marks even for dissimilar goods where use would suggest a connection or damage the famous mark's interests.
Article 9 permits an application to cover one or more classes of goods or services as the regulations determine, and class boundaries do not by themselves decide similarity. After examination, Article 14 requires publication of the accepted application, and any interested party may oppose within sixty days; the applicant must reply within sixty days of notification, failing which the application is deemed waived. Article 15 allows appeal of the opposition decision within thirty days, and under Article 17 a registered mark takes effect from the filing date and confers the exclusive right to stop confusing use, confusion being presumed where an identical or similar sign is used for similar goods or services.
Keeping a registration alive: renewal, use and cancellation
Article 20 of the GCC Trademark Law grants protection for ten years, renewable for identical periods on application during the last year. The owner may still renew within six months after expiry; once that grace period lapses, the authority deletes the mark from the register. Renewal requires no fresh examination and is not open to opposition. We maintain renewal calendars with early reminders, because a deleted mark leaves the brand exposed exactly when the market has learned to trust it.
Registration can also be lost from within. Under Article 24, a competent court may cancel a mark not actively used for five consecutive years, unless the owner justifies the non-use; under Article 25, a canceled mark cannot be re-registered for others for the same or similar goods before three years pass, unless the court sets a shorter period. Article 22 allows court cancellation of improperly registered marks. Keeping dated evidence of genuine Kuwaiti use, invoices, packaging, advertising and platform listings, is a compliance task, not an afterthought.
Licensing and transferring marks
Articles 29 to 33 of the GCC Trademark Law govern licenses. The owner may license the mark for all or part of the registered goods or services, for a term not exceeding the protection period. Article 30 forbids restrictions beyond what registration requires, while permitting limits on territory and term, quality control conditions and commitments not to harm the mark. Article 31 makes written form a condition of validity of the license contract, though recordal is not required, and Article 32 bars the licensee from assigning the license or granting sub-licenses unless otherwise agreed.
Transfers follow Article 27: assignment, mortgage or seizure of a mark takes effect only once recorded in the trademarks register and announced as the regulations provide, and under Article 28 the transfer of a business includes the marks closely associated with it unless otherwise agreed. In distribution and franchise files we compare the signed license with the register: an unrecorded assignment is ineffective and an unwritten license invalid.
Patents and industrial designs
Law No. 4 of 1962 on Patents, Designs and Industrial Models, as amended by Law No. 3 of 2001, remains the national text. Article 12, as replaced by the 2001 amendment, grants a patent for twenty years from the application date, with maintenance applications due in the last six months of every four-year period; the same amendment added utility model patents, protected for seven years without renewal. Kuwait is a contracting state of the Patent Cooperation Treaty, and since 1 January 2023 the GCC Patent Office has resumed receiving and examining patent applications on behalf of Kuwait, formally and substantively, under the GCC Patent Regulation as amended by the GCC Supreme Council decision of 5 January 2021.
Industrial designs follow Part Two of the same law: Article 35 protects every arrangement of lines or three-dimensional shape, with or without colors, for industrial production, and Article 42, as amended in 2001, grants ten years of protection from the application date, renewable once for five further years. Our standing advice is to verify current examination practice and fees with the registry before filing, and to coordinate design filings with trademark and copyright protection so packaging and product shapes are covered on every track.
Lawful uses and exceptions
Article 31 of Law 75 of 2019 lists the uses that need no permission, provided they do not conflict with normal exploitation or unjustifiably harm the right holder. The list includes a copy for purely personal use, quotation consistent with custom, short reproductions for teaching, family performances, ephemeral copies within technical processes, press articles on current topics, caricature, parody and pastiche, and accessible copies for persons with disabilities. Software has a tailored exception: the lawful acquirer may make a single copy for defined purposes, including adaptation, reverse engineering to study the program's ideas, correcting errors and security weaknesses, testing and backup.
Article 31 ends with a rule drafters should note: any agreement contrary to these exceptions is null. Article 33 adds compulsory, non-exclusive licenses for translation or reproduction of published works for educational purposes, granted by a reasoned ministerial decision against fair compensation assessed by the competent court. Kuwaiti exceptions are purpose-bound and narrow; a marketing department cannot borrow them to justify commercial reuse of third-party content.
Enforcement: from precautionary seizure to criminal complaints
Civil tools are fast. Under Article 35 of Law 75 of 2019 the summary judge may order a detailed description of the work, suspension of publication or manufacture, seizure of copies and of materials fit only for infringement, and an inventory of revenues, all on the request of a concerned party. Under Articles 40 and 41 of the GCC Trademark Law the competent court may order precautionary measures, deciding a petition within ten days and even ex parte where delay would cause irreparable harm, and may award compensation including the infringer's profits and order destruction of counterfeit goods; the main claim follows within twenty days. At the border, Article 37 of Law 75 of 2019 and Article 38 of the GCC Trademark Law let customs suspend release of infringing goods, on request or on its own initiative, with the substantive claim filed within ten working days.
Criminal exposure is real. Article 43 of Law 75 of 2019 punishes infringement of moral or economic rights, including making works available online or selling protected copies, with imprisonment of six months to two years and a fine of five hundred to fifty thousand dinars, or either penalty; Article 44 punishes circumvention of technological protection measures, tampering with rights management information and unlicensed copying or rental of programs, applications and databases with the same imprisonment range and a fine of one thousand to one hundred thousand dinars, or either penalty. Under Article 42 of the GCC Trademark Law, counterfeiting a registered mark carries one month to three years imprisonment and a fine of five thousand to one million Saudi riyals or the GCC equivalent, or either penalty; lesser offenses carry one month to one year and one thousand to one hundred thousand riyals equivalent, or either penalty, and Article 43 allows up to double the maximum for a repeat offense within three years, with closure of the business for 15 days to six months and publication of the judgment at the offender's expense.
What we review in a Kuwait intellectual property file
When we review a Kuwaiti IP position we start with the chain of title: employment and commissioning contracts tested against Article 27 of Law 75 of 2019, and every assignment against the written form and specificity rules of Article 11. We then map the trademark portfolio against the GCC Trademark Law: registrability under Articles 3 and 4, opposition risk under Article 14, renewals and grace periods under Article 20, use evidence against the five-year cancellation rule of Article 24, and license and assignment recordals under Articles 27 and 31. For patents and designs we verify the current filing route with the registry, and for enforcement we preserve unaltered evidence, assess customs suspension and precautionary measures, and plan any criminal complaint with the Public Prosecution. The file closes with a compliance calendar covering renewals, National Library deposits and the evidence each business unit must keep.
See also: our Kuwait telecom and IT guide and our Kuwait M&A due diligence guide, plus our commercial and corporate practice.
Frequently asked questions
Is copyright registration required in Kuwait?
No. Article 3 of Law 75 of 2019 protects works from creation without any formality; voluntary deposit with the National Library of Kuwait under Article 38 creates a rebuttable presumption of ownership.
Who owns a logo designed by an external agency?
Under Article 27 of Law 75 of 2019 the creating author owns the work unless a written agreement provides otherwise, so the commissioning company needs a written assignment that satisfies Article 11.
How long does a Kuwaiti trademark registration last?
Ten years under Article 20 of the GCC Trademark Law, renewable for identical periods, with a six-month grace period after expiry before the mark is deleted.
Can an international trademark registration designate Kuwait?
No. Kuwait is not a member of the Madrid Protocol, so brand owners file national applications with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry directly.
What is the trademark opposition period in Kuwait?
Sixty days from publication of the accepted application under Article 14 of the GCC Trademark Law, and the applicant must answer within sixty days of notification or the application is deemed waived.
What penalties apply to counterfeiting in Kuwait?
Article 42 of the GCC Trademark Law punishes counterfeiting a registered mark with one month to three years imprisonment and a fine of five thousand to one million Saudi riyals or the GCC equivalent, or either penalty; copyright infringement under Article 43 of Law 75 of 2019 carries six months to two years in prison and a fine of five hundred to fifty thousand dinars, or either penalty.
Can Kuwaiti customs stop counterfeit goods?
Yes. Article 38 of the GCC Trademark Law and Article 37 of Law 75 of 2019 allow customs to suspend release of infringing goods, on application or on its own initiative, after which the substantive claim must be filed within ten working days.
Do you review intellectual property portfolios for Kuwait?
Yes. We audit chains of title, file and renew trademarks, draft and record licenses and plan enforcement before courts and customs. Contact us through our contact page to discuss your portfolio.