IRAQ: Kurdistan is now a completely independent IP jurisdiction

Since 2011 the Ministry of Trade and Industry from Kurdistan is claiming that Iraqi trademark registrations before Iraqi PTO in Baghdad no longer cover Iraq jurisdiction. Now, the State Council of Iraq has issued an opinion clarifying this question, informing that there is no longer possibility of extending the trademark registrations from Iraq to Kurdistan. In this sense, Kurdistan is now a completely independent IP jurisdiction and the protection have to be sought directly before Kurdistan authorities.

It is important to remind that in the past there were two options of obtaining trademark protection in Kurdistan: request an extension of protection in Kurdistan for the already registered trademarks in Iraq or file directly in Erbil, before the Kurdistan Registrar.

Taking this into account, now we advise our clients to file its trademark directly in Kurdistan, especially for the well-known trademarks, in order to avoid the speculation from third parties.