The Bahrain Ministry of Industry and Commerce has recently signed agreements with the South Korean and European Patent Offices to mutually benefit from the Patent Prosecution Highway program. Applicants who receive a positive ruling on patent claims from the Bahrain IPO and either the South Korean IPO or the EPO will enjoy an accelerated examination of corresponding claims in the other office, and vice versa. This will serve to reduce the time it takes to secure patent protection in these jurisdictions, and will streamline the prosecution of those patent applications.

Following a recent decision by the Bahraini Patent Office to begin substantively examining patent applications, the long-awaited Implementing Regulations of Law No. 1 of 2004 concerning patents and utility models were published on 13th December 2018. It is hoped that these Regulations will provide a clearer prosecution procedure for patent applications in Bahrain. Please review our full article for further information.