What is a trademark?

A trademark is a distinctive sign or emblem used by abusiness or company to identify and distinguish its products and/or services from other companies. The Trademark is used to avoid misleading information and potentially confusing their customers with other similar products or services.

What is the purpose of trademarks?

-Identify the products and services to the consumers.

What is the difference between a trademark and a trade name?

A trade name is the name under which a product is commercially known. Some products are sold under common names, such as Microsoft, or an internationally recognized trade name, like Apple.

Trade names are sometimes identified by symbols such as ‘TM’ for an ‘R’ with a circle around it.

Where, a trademark is a name, symbol, or other device identifying a product, it is registered and legally restricted to the use by the owner or manufacturer.

A trade name is what commercial institutions and merchants use for their establishments to distinguish them from similar establishments, whereas a trademark is what commercial institutions and merchants use to distinguish their products or services.

Sometimes a trade name may be used as a trademark if it is sufficiently used on or in association with the products or services and obtained by sufficient distinction, for example: Nestle.

What a trademark consist of?

Usually, a trademark will consist of a name, word, phrase, logo, symbol, color, design, image, three dimensional shapes or a combination of two or more of these elements.

Although, non-conventional marks like sounds, smell and holograms are being used as trademarks in several countries.

 Also, there is what we call distinctive and non-distinctive trademarks which are as follows:

Fanciful Marks: Naturally distinctive trademarks, which consist of an entirely “fanciful” sign, such as Kodak which had no meaning or existence before it was adopted andused as a trademark in relation to goods, whetherphotographic goods or products. .

Arbitrary Trademark: It is usually a common word used in a meaningless context. Such marks consist of words with dictionary meaning that are being adopted as trademarks in connection with products or services, however, they are not used in relation with their dictionary meaning, such as “APPLE” for computers and of course it is not used withthe fruit of an apple !

Suggestive Marks: They are marks that suggest but do not directly describe the products, such as ”Microsoft” which is suggestive of software for microcomputers.

Descriptive Marks: They are marks which only describe the product, such as “light” for portable computers describing the computers’ weight. These can only be protected if they acquire sufficient distinctiveness.

Generic Marks: They are marks that automaticallyrepresent the product and are incapable of functioning as a trade dress or a trademark, such as www or html. Such marks cannot be protected as trademarks.

 Are there different types of trademarks? 

There are four main types of trademarks, each used for a different purpose:

 Industrial and Commercial Marks: Marks that are used in association with industrial or commercial products likecars, mobile phones, foods or beverages.

Service Marks: Marks that are used to distinguish services provided by different businesses, such as food services and hotels.

Collective Marks: Marks which can distinguish goods or services by the members of an organization, from other goods or services on the basis of quality, origin or other characteristics of the goods or services bearing the collective mark.

Certification Marks: Marks that are used in connection with the goods or services of a person to indicate that the work or labor on the goods or services was performed by themember organizations, such as ISO.

What happens if two people (applicants) apply for registration of the same mark?

According to the general rule, if two or more applications are filed for the same trademark, the Registrar shall grant the registration to the application that was filed first, or which is accompanied by a priority claim according to the “first to file” rule.

However, those who have a priority right of a certain markin any of the member countries in the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property may benefit from that right in other member countries. Regardless, if a prior application by someone else has been filed, the priority claim must made within 6 months of the first registration.

 What to do if someone infringes on a trademark?

If someone infringes your trademark, you should follow the below-mentioned procedures:

Write a “Cease-and-Desist” letter asking the accused infringer to stop using the trademark.

If the accused infringer refuses to comply, you may file a lawsuit in court.

The court may grant you a preliminary ban on the use of the mark i.e. telling the infringer to stop using the trademark while the court trial is pending.

If you successfully prove the trademark infringement in thecourt, the court has the power to execute the following:

- Order a permanent ban and sanctions.

- Order monetary compensation; as well as imposing sanctions punishing the infringer.

How long does trademark protection last?

The minimum protection period for trademarks, according to international conventions, is seven years starting from the date of filing the application. However, according to most national laws, the trademark protection period is ten years, subject to annual renewal. In all cases, a trademark registration could be renewed for an indefinite period of time, if renewed.

Is it necessary to keep using a trademark after its registration?

Continuous use of trademarks is vital to maintain its registration. Interested parties have the right to request the cancellation of any trademark that has not been usedcontinuously for a certain period of time, usually three years, unless the owner proves that he had reasonable or unavoidable reasons preventing him from using the mark.

By: Ahmad H. Al-Jaser

Email: aaljaser@agip.com

Conflict of Interest Department at Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP)

Building a trademark is one of the most initial steps companies take into consideration whenever they intend to start a new business, as few important measures take place to avoid any future problems.

Usually, trademarks’ owners create their own and pay a lot of money for designing new logos, printing brochures, producing, manufacturing, promoting and exporting the new products to other countries and flooding the market. Unfortunately, and after applying all these steps, it appears to trademarks’ owners that there are similar or identical trademarks in the market and that the conflicting trademark is registered in many countries!!

What shall the owner of the new trademark do in this case??!!

Such behavior would lead to losing all the money paid on the trademark and facing legal cases would make him feel helpless and in a critical position.

Thus, avoiding such problems may be clarified in the followings points:

Choosing Distinguished Trademarks:

If you look for the meaning of Kodak or Google in your dictionary, you will not find a meaning for such words. These are called “Fanciful Trademarks”. This kind of trademarks is considered the distinctive and distinguishable type when referring to creativity. The trademarks’ owners are highly recommended to use this kind of trademarks.

The second type of trademarks is “Arbitrary Trademarks”, e.g. Apple for computers. Apple has a specific meaning, but the list of goods and services related to computer field is not connected to the real meaning of an apple. This makes the word “Apple” distinguishable in the field of computers.

The Third and Forth level of trademarks types are “The Descriptive and Generic words”. Such types of trademarks are so weak. The trademarks’ owners must avoid this kind of trademarks as much as possible since it facilitates infringement acts or can be easily violated.

Researching and Investigating:

The easiest way to check if there are any similar or identical trademarks is surfing the Internet, since you can Google your new trademark, and search for any similar or identical trademarks.

Further, there are many online trademark databases such as USPTO, OHIM, WIPO and others that you can use as your search engine to help you find any similar trademarks.

Another way to examine your trademark is asking your trademark agent to conduct an official search for trademarks in the countries you are interested in.

The official search usually covers trademarks that are filed and registered in addition to pending applications. Such search will provide very accurate results of similar or identical trademarks.

Get the Maximum Protection:

After choosing, researching and investigating your brand, you may protect your trademark as well by following below points:

• Choose the Countries:

When selecting the countries you wish to seek trademark protection in, you should keep in mind the future plans since most of the trademarks’ owners stick to their countries or the region around, and eventually, they forget all about their future plans or expansion. Consequently, they lose the novelty of their trademark in other countries as their trademarks were not protected.

• Choose Class / List of Goods:

There are three ways to choose your class:

Class Heading: meaning that you have to claim as much as possible the list of goods included in the class. In this way, you can obtain high protection of your trademark.

Specify your List of Goods: meaning that you have to claim only the good(s) that you are interested in and thus you can obtain the protection for the list of goods you have chosen.

Related Class: There is a relation between some classes at NICE classification. For example, Cosmetics – Class 3 and Pharmaceuticals in Class 5. Considering the relation between the class relations; it will lead you to obtain the highest protection of the new trademark.

Maintaining Your Trademark:

To maintain your trademark protection, you should proceed with legal action against any infringement acts that may endanger your trademark, since monitoring the market for any similar or identical infringing trademarks in addition to legal action will increase your trademark strength.  

Every business, product or service has its own identity name to distinguish it from other brands in the market. Millions of products or services have a given name  which we deal with on a daily basis to identify that particular brand from the others. Some of these brand names are globally recognizable and have built a strong awareness as well as a very good reputation and are promoted successfully in the market place.

What is brand awareness?

It is a concept of how to measure the consumer’s knowledge and recognition of a brand that exists in the market.

What makes these brands globally recognizable and gives consumers strong awareness:

-          Marketing strategies,plans and campaigns.

-          Advertising.

-          Internet presence (social media and social networks)

-          Customer’s recommendations.

-          Loyalty programs

-          Online and digital advertising.

-          Reputation and recognition of the brand in one territory or more.

-          Youtube and slideshare outlets.

-          PR

-          Engaging directly with existing audiences (quizzes, contests, surveys, promotional offers.).

-          Marketing yourself and your employees. Employees can be a brand ambassador for your brand to build brand awareness.

How to build brand awareness?

First start with your audience! What is the brand for? who are you talking to? Identify  your audience:

-          What they Like, What are their interests, what they need, what are their expectations?

-          Where my audience would be: different brands have different market places so you need to know exactly in which market you are going to place and sell your brand.

Then begin with marketing, advertising plans and strategies to reach customers in different places.

Using more than one advertising technique is preferable. Since the emergence of social media trend for brands, it has become the optimal way to reach your audience locally and globally with a very positive impact.

Staying online with your audience will give a good impression and image of your brand as well as the quality of service and product you offer. Always communicate with your customers or any potential customer by responding to their e-mails, phone calls, messages, or instant messages. You can even create an instant online support system to receive any complaint or issues that need to be solved. Feedback is imperative therefore stay online 24/7.

Social media outlets have a strong positive effect on building brand awareness. Facebook pages, twitter and linkedin  are all considered to be the true method to reach the market place for brand owners. Consumers can interact, recommend and talk about your brand since all these social media outlets are free and easy to access by all people.

Using metric tools to measure the brand awareness is important in order to reach and understand your clientele (customers) needs, and feedback regarding whether they are satisfied or not.

Below are some of the recommended metric tools to measure your brand awareness:

With these tools you can get reports and analysis about the segments reached by brands, tracking who and what they are talking about. This helps measure brand visibility on  social networks.  This shows engagement, strength and influence of a brand on social networks.

-          Tweetreach

-          Socialmention

-          Howsociable

The social network platform we use is rich with very interesting and effective metric tools to monitor the brand awareness in each platform. I will list for you some of these features in each platform separately:

-          Linkedin: Linkedin is a pure business networking tool. The new feature added by Linkedin recently (company profile page) is considered to be a metric tool for your brand. You can see how many visits,views and follow them to your page on a monthly basis, and also, who is interested in working on your brand’s company profile page.

To get this feature first you have to create a company or brand profile page. Click the link below

http://www.linkedin.com/company/yourcompany and then click Analytics, once you land in your company page you will get analysis about:

-          Page Views.

-          Unique Visitors.

-          Product and Services analysis.

-          Members following you.

Facebook: is a treasure for Brand pages, once you have created your brand page you can benefit from the built in free metric tools (the insight feature) it provides valuable analytic data for your brand on facebook on a monthly or weekly basis. You can see how many visits, followers, interaction, post views, geographic area of each visitor, language, countries and more interesting and helpful analysis.  This data can be exported to spreadsheets to help prepare your reports.

Twitter: easy and simple metric tool. Twitter dashboard allows you to see how many followers you have for your brand, how many people follow, how many tweets you have for your brands. You can share news and updates about your brand and direct them to different links.

Brand is a valuable Intellectual Property asset. Do not forget to protect your brand.

Patent Troll: The patent hunting and lawsuit generator

We have not been hearing about the patent wars in the world for too long.  Smart phones patent industries and technologies have led to the filing of tens or even maybe hundreds of lawsuits pertaining to patent infringements. There has been talk about rising patent trolls of technological inventions and the huge number of lawsuits which have been filed in the courts during the last two decades to prove who has the right to the invention and who has the right to use it and/or what product comes out of a certain invention.

 What is Patent Troll:   There are many definitions for patent trolls and one of these definitions according to the investopedia.com is “A derogatory term used to describe people or companies that misuse patents as a business strategy. A patent troll obtains the patents being sold at auctions by bankrupt companies attempting to liquidate their assets, or by doing just enough research to prove they had the idea first. They can then launch lawsuits against infringing companies, or simply hold the patent without planning to practice the idea in an attempt to keep other companies productivity at a standstill”.

In other words patent troll is: A Non Practicing Company (NPC) which holds a patent, without practicing and could file a lawsuit against any company that uses the technology of the patented invention when they produce a certain product. Usually this happens when the company buys a patent from a company which wants to sell their patents due to a financial crisis or bankruptcy.

So the main reason for this Patent Troll may not be to use the patent or produce the technology and products, but to be used for what it is called “hunting the infringer” or lawsuit generator.

 What Patent Trolls do and how it could affect the business of technology innovation:

 Patent Troll Companies have no intention to use the patent in the market to produce a product related to this patent.  Rather, it would use the patent to generate revenues without manufacturing products from the patent they own by waiting and watching competitors. When the competitor starts selling a certain product of the invention in the market place, they immediately file a lawsuit of infringement.  Patent Troll Company may settle this by reaching a license agreement between both parties, or by obtaining money from the infringing party.

Patent troll is an obstacle for the inventors to stop development of technology.  If a lawsuit is filed, it will kill innovation and technology progress. The lawsuit usually takes a long time without settlement and would affect your business financially as well as technically.

Besides that the long procedures and process of settlement is certain to prevent and limit the productivity of other companies and their invention instead of generating revenues or marketing products for this invention, if we look at the studies and research at Boston University about the Patent Trolls we find that the patent trolls have cost the innovators about $500 billion during the past two decades which mean a  huge obstruction on the road of the development and innovation, thus in an effort to try and stop this war, the new US patent reform act has been emerged and took step forward to reform the US Patent System situation which has made significant change to the filing system.

 In conclusion, Patent troll cases need to take quick action, and install appropriate settlement procedures to keep gaining advantages from the technology we invent.

Test your Trademark Logo knowledge & win Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Laptop (TAGITop)

Each three months AGIP will be presenting an online quiz to test your knowledge of trademark logo.

Please take a few minutes to complete this quiz and submit your answers here One winner will be selected randomly from all correct answers, and win Talal Abu-Ghazaleh Laptop (TAGITop).

This quiz will start on September 15, 2011 till December 14, 2011.

Enjoy!

Do you know how much traffic Twitter is sending to your blog and/or website? It’s imperative you track your “referring URL” traffic in Google Analytics to see what marketing efforts are driving traffic to your site. Does the majority of your traffic come from Facebook? Twitter? LinkedIn? Or maybe somebody mentioned you in a blog post. Wouldn’t it be nice to head over and say thank you? But I digress, I’ll get back to the subject of the post.

I read on Larry Bodine’s blog yesterday that Twitter is releasing a new web analytics tool that will allow website owners to see how much traffic is generated to their site from Twitter.

Why use Twitter Web Analytics instead of Google Analytics?

• You can measure the effectiveness of your Tweet Button
• Better understand how much of your website content is being shared across Twitter
• Simple dashboard with easy-to-understand features.  Google Analytics can get a little complicated. 

Full article at: http://www.socialmediaforlawfirms.com/2011/09/how-much-traffic-is-twitter-sending-to.html

Source: Social Media for Law Firms by Samantha Collier.

One of the key factors in building a good image and reputation for a brand is the number of fans who are loyal to the brands. Increasing the number of fans or followers on the brands’ pages on social networks has become the main concern for companies working hard to reach the targeted fans and potential customers.

Marketing plans and strategies on social networks is a very effective way to reach the customers in the Branding industry. However, a new trend has emerged in which companies buy fans or followers to add them on their brands pages on social networks. The number of fans on their page increases, but, after all they are all fake FANS.

There is no law that states whether buying a fan or follower is legal or not, it is a matter of ethics.

Why you should not buy fans or followers:

-          The fans/followers you are going to buy will not be loyal to your brand

-          The bought fans are not interactive on your page; they do not have interest in the brand they “like”.

-          Some of fake fans may interact improperly by leaving inappropriate comments on your page.

-          The true and real fans will be deceived and betrayed; they might leave and abandon the brand page.

-          Incorrect and  unreliable analysis (Feedback, Impression, Performance) .

-           Bought “Fans” are not guaranteed to stay on brand page for long time since they are not loyal.

-          Might make the brand weak and lose its reputation.

-          Customers and fans will also lose confidence in the brand.

It is not about how many fans “like” your Brand page, it is about how loyal they are, how they interact, give feedback and impression about the brands, it is about (Quality not Quantity).

 So what are your thoughts about buying fans/follower to your Brand?

USPTO Issues 8 Millionth Patent
Thursday – August 18 – 2011

WASHINGTON – The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) issued its 8 millionth patent to Second Sight Medical Products Inc., for a visual prosthesis apparatus that enhances visual perception for people who have gone blind due to outer retinal degeneration. According to the USPTO, the invention uses electrical stimulation of the retina to produce the visual perception of patterns of light. The product – the Argus® II – is currently in US clinical trials and has received marketing approval in Europe.

“This kind of innovation is a driver of our nation’s economic growth and job creation,” said Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the USPTO David Kappos. “The USPTO plays a major role in serving America’s innovators by granting the intellectual property rights they need to secure investment capital, build companies and bring their products and services to the global marketplace.”

“Second Sight has 90 issued US patents surrounding technology associated with sight restoration for the blind and treatment of a variety of other medical conditions,” said Robert Greenberg, president and CEO of Second Sight. “This patent protection and significant federal support for innovation have already played key roles in creating nearly 100 US jobs at our company. Once the Argus II has FDA approval in the United States, we expect to create hundreds of more jobs over the next several years, while delivering a breakthrough treatment for a previously untreatable medical condition.”

It took 75 years to get to patent 1 million in August 1911, yet just under six years to get from patent 7 million to today’s 8 millionth patent. More information on these milestones is available at http://www.uspto.gov/news/Millions_of_Patents.jsp

In a healthy eye, the photoreceptors (rods and cones) on the retina convert light into tiny electrochemical impulses that are sent through the optic nerve and into the brain, where they are decoded into images. If the photoreceptors no longer function correctly, the first step in this process is disrupted and the visual system cannot transform light into images, causing blindness.

The system awarded patent number 8,000,000 is designed to bypass the damaged photoreceptors altogether. A miniature video camera housed in the patient’s glasses sends information to a small computer worn by the patient where it is processed and transformed into instructions transmitted wirelessly to a receiver in an implanted stimulator. The signals are then sent to an electrode array, attached to the retina, which emits small pulses of electricity. These electrical pulses are intended to bypass the damaged photoreceptors and stimulate the retina’s remaining cells to transmit the visual information along the optic nerve to the brain.

The signing and presentation of the 8 millionth patent by Director Kappos will take place at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on Sept. 8, 2011.

By Ms. Marjan Payan Tabari

Legal Consultant

TAGLegal UAE

Introduction:

In a world of ‘commons’, what does justify the first private acquisition of what we call property? The answer to this question is the key to solve many other riddles such as: What rights and duties are being conferred upon the acquirer? On what conditions and in what situations can a State confiscate the property? Do we own our thought and intellectual achievements? Do we own our body as our property? Do we own our labor? Do we have to give away part of our property to charity?

These questions matter only when one cares about justice, in whatever definition one believes in. One might replace the word justice with efficiency or welfare or so on. However, the bottom line is that all those who ask these questions strive to avoid the potential anarchism in the society. Providing an amount of predictability, reliability and security in the social life is the least thing that all the legal theorists of property have been seeking up to now.

Much have been said and written about these questions. Nevertheless, the puzzle of property rights has remained the most baffling thus far, making some people believe that there is no such theory of property whatsoever. Looking at the property cases brought to the US Supreme Court, one can see that now and then courts have resorted to different theories, such as Natural Rights, Labor Theory or Utilitarianism, although the latter has remained the most dominant approach since the mid 20^th century. This disparity in choosing the applicable theory, along with the inherent shortcomings of the Utilitarian approach betrays the aforementioned bottom line, i.e. predictability & reliability.

The uncertainty in choosing the applicable theory of property is mainly the result of internal shortcomings of each of these theories. As I will explain later in this article, the Utilitarian approach offers more predictability; however, this privilege, especially in the newer expression of this School i.e. Wealth Maximization, is many a times the result of too much simplification of the facts. That is, the utilitarian-based theories usually erase those questions that Naturalists and Lockean theorists failed to answer persuasively. Erasing the question is a shortcut to an answer which is not necessarily well-rounded enough to even live up to the bottom-line of an optimal property system.

On the other hand, admittedly, there must be a compelling reason for rapid marginalization of Naturalists and Lockean theorists by the legal community based on Bentham’s and his followers’ criticisms. There are questions that Naturalists failed to provide a compelling answer for. At some point they suffer from internal conflict or lack of sufficient explanation or justification.

In this article, after reviewing the existing theories of property and their shortcomings, we will present a new system which is based on Islamic theory of rights and property. Like all the other human-tailored theories, this theory is subject to limitations and is partly clouded in question marks. However, as this article claims, it pushes the existing theories at least one step further in terms of internal coherency.

Before we delve into the discussion about mainstream property rights, in the next section we will briefly discuss the mainstream theories of “justice” as such, and its relevance to our paper. We will be shown that every theory of property is mainly and primarily based on a theory of justice. Any such theory which underlies a property system, will continue to cast light on all aspects of the system henceforth.

In the second section, We will explore the mainstream theories of property and their shortcomings. The last section will be devoted to the Islamic theory of justice and property.

1. Theories of justice

One’s freedom to do a thing, or to enjoy a right always entails another persons’ restriction. As Richard Powel truly states, “Property right, at any moment of time, represents the current wisdom as to how this balance [between freedom and restriction] is best served.”¹ In fact, all the theories of right strive to best explain the justifying roots of this freedom and restriction, and to create a balance therein. In the pursuit of a just and optimal balance, scholars diverge mainly on the below question:

Do we discover the optimal balance in the light of inherent right & wrong, or do we carve out the optimal balance in the light of the best interests of the society?

The classical divergence between the scholars as to the answer has shaped two mainstream Schools of Justice: Categorical justice, and Consequential justice.² Briefly put, Categorical justice states that right & wrong exists independent from human being’s will. In every situation there is an inherently right thing to do as well as an inherently wrong option, regardless of the consequences of the decision. On the contrary, Consequential justice suggests that there is no inherent or natural right & wrong. The only real thing in the world is the interest of all the human beings in being happy. Thus, right and wrong should be measured in terms of the consequences of the decision, i.e. the amount of the happiness it may create for the human being.

Categorical justice theory forms the essence of the Natural Rights theory; and the Consequential theory leads us to what is called Utilitarianism. In fact, Consequential justice theory was introduced by Jeremy Bentham, the founder of Utilitarianism. As a result, advocates of categorical justice believe in discovery of rights; whereas Consequentialists believe in creation of rights (e.g. property rights) by the State according to the best interests of the society, that is maximization of happiness.

As we will discuss in the last section, Islam approves of Categorical justice, and thus, existence of natural rights.

NOTE:

Hardly, if possible at all, can anyone prove or disprove existence of categorical justice and natural rights. For those who believe in it, it is self evidentiary, and for the opponents, the whole idea of natural rights is a fiction, and a “Nonsense upon Stilts.”³ In fact. it is more a matter of belief or disbelief, rather than a proof or disproof. The scholars of both Schools, either take it for granted that justice is or is not categorically existent, or, at the best situation, they make a reference to Holy Books (as some Naturalists do). In both situations, there is no evidence put forth by scholars to positively prove the claim thereof. Rather, the arguments are mostly about flaws of the opposing theory, and why the opposing theory may not be true. At the end of the day, one may choose between the two theories probably only by a ‘beyond reasonable doubt’ approach.

This is not a criticism to the existing literature. In fact, we admit that as in any other philosophical discussion, we may never expect to have a totally compelling theory which is provable via scientific or empirical study. However, we opened this discussion in order to mention that in this article we do not intend to prove or disprove existence of categorical justice or natural rights (natural property rights). We only intend to discover the opinion of Islam about justice, and then accordingly, build up our theory of property.

We believe this new perception of property rights, which is loyal to categorical justice, may be more compelling to the skeptical minds, and more assertive against the Utilitarian critics.

1. Natural Property Rights vs. Utilitarianism: the assertions and the flaws
2. Islamic Theory of Property

1^ Powel, Richard. “Relationship between Property Rights and Civil Rights” 15 Hastings L.J. 135 (1963-1964) at page 140

2^ See e.g. : Darwall, Stephen L. Philosophical Ethics. Dimensions of philosophy series. Boulder, Colo. [u.a.]: Westview Press, 1998., And, Cummiskey, David. Kantian Consequentialism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. <http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/0195094530.001.0001>.

3^ Bentham’s famous sentence in “A Critical Examination of the Declaration of Rights” which states: “Natural rights is simple nonsense: natural and imprescriptible rights, rhetorical nonsense–nonsense upon stilts.” See ANARCHICAL FALLACIES; BEING AN EXAMINATION OF THE DECLARATIONS OF RIGHTS ISSUED DURING THE FRENCH REVOLUTION. – Jeremy Bentham, The Works of Jeremy Bentham, vol. 2 [1843] Available at: http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1921&chapter=114226&layout=html&Itemid=27 (last visited on April 25, 2011)

Please note that all foreigners, whether natural or juristic persons, are not allowed to undertake any private business activities or establish a business presence in Qatar without engaging with Qatari national holding at least 51% (50% if the foreign shareholder is a GCC national or a GCC company that is 100% owned by GCC nationals) of the capital.

The following are the requirements for registration a limited liability company:

Information and Documents Required:

- If the partners are individuals (natural persons), names of the partners, their nationalities, their passport/ID numbers, their addresses and copies of their passports/IDs

- In case of companies (corporate persons), the legal names of the companies, their nationalities, their commercial registration numbers, the names and designations of the individuals authorised to sign on their behalf, evidence of such individuals’ authorisations, their addresses, copies of the passports/IDs of the individuals authorised to sign, and notarised copies of the commercial registration and the authorisations

- Distribution of equity in the new company

- The name of the new company

- The objects of the new company

- The term of the new company

- The proposed capital (minimum QR. 200,000)

- The name of the bank where the capital is going to be deposited

- A certificate from the nominated bank showing that the capital has been deposited in the name of the new company

- The name of the company manager and a copy of his passport/ID (and his authorities if necessary)

- The number of the members of the board of managers and their term of office

- The voting majority (if in excess of 51%)

- The lease agreement for the office for, and in the name of, the new company

- A sketch for the company signboard and a photo thereof; photograph of the building and a copy of the ownership deed.

- The fees for registration