ALGERIA: The New Finance and Tax law of 2022 of has been enacted in Algeria with a 19% Value Added Tax (VAT) added to professional services which has come to effect as of 01 January 2022.
Accordingly, all the IP matters in Algeria filed/pending as January 1st, 2022 will be subject to VAT in accordance with the law and its implementing regulation. Our invoices issued as of February 10th will include the 19% VAT of our professional fees and we have not applied the VAT for January, as we were awaiting final confirmation from the authorities
AFGHANISTAN: The Ministry of Industry and Commerce in Afghanistan has announced an increase in the new official fees for Intellectual Property services provided in Afghanistan with some services increased almost 100%. That said, since the national currency AFN has plummeted in the recent days; the increase more or less equitable as such. We will only update our charges after monitoring the local currency for fluctuations against dollar to avoid troubling our valued associates and clients.
SAUDI ARABIA: We are pleased to inform you that Saudi Arabia has approved the accession to The Hague Convention Abolishing the Requirement of Legalization for Foreign Public Documents (Apostille Convention). As per the current practice official documents such as POA, recordal documents etc were only accepted if they met all the formalities of legalization abroad. The Kingdom is expected to complete the legal formalities for the accession in due course of the year.
IRAQ: The Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) has a new member as on January 31, 2022 and the Treaty will enter into force on April 30, 2022. Please be advised that it is not possible to designate the jurisdiction yet as the formalities and necessary updates to the current system must be achieved. As such patents could only be filed as per Paris Convention priority of 12 months form initial filing.
For further information or for the circulars as published please write to us at info@jahcoip.com