Business & Money | Thursday 12 December, 2019 11:34 am |

Recently the Saudi Authority for Intellectual Property (SAIP) carried out an extensive inspection campaign in different cities and regions in the Kingdom to uncover stores, which violate intellectual property rights (IPR), specifically the copyright and trademarks protection law.

SAIP has warned against the promotion or sale of any products or any activities that violate intellectual property right and reiterated that it will be strictly imposing relevant penalties to ensure IPR protection.

Complementing SAIP’s ongoing efforts to protect intellectual property rights, the campaign resulted in uncovering many in several cities and provinces on large scale within scale the Kingdom based stores involved in selling devices, constituting IPR infringement. The illegal devices were seized to implement appropriate penalties with the goal of curbing the circulation of such products and similar violations of rights.

Reiterated that it will be strictly imposing relevant penalties to ensure IPR protection, especially concerning digital and paper literary, art products, and trademarks. The inspection follows several awareness campaigns, conducted by SAIP in partnership with competent entities to raise awareness of intellectual property protection and penalties as per relevant laws and regulations.

 "The SAIP campaign is an extension of our periodic unscheduled inspection on public establishments and stores, which circulate or deal with products that violate intellectual property rights on any as part of its operations. We are determined to establish the principles of respecting intellectual property rights, and combating the infringement of these rights in the Kingdom,” said Yasser Al-Debassi , Executive Director of the Intellectual Property Rights Protection Department at SAIP. Cooperating with partners from the Kingdom’s government and private sectors, SAIP is determined to monitor the activities of service providers and companies that involve intellectual property rights to ensure that the rights are honored, through ongoing awareness campaigns and inspections aimed at apprehending violators.

SAIP also called on citizens and residents of Saudi Arabia to respect intellectual property rights by promptly reporting such violations by visiting SAIP’s official social media channels: @saipksa, email at Saip@Saip.gov.sa, or call its direct customer service number at 920021421.