IP Litigation

We are confident that our firm is exceptionally well positioned to service the world’s leading companies. We always pride ourselves in being adaptable to our client’s needs and having competitive prices. We believe that our track record in the area is exceptional as we provide our services based on our proven skills, our ability to provide a timely response to instructions and inquiries and the competitiveness of our rates. We are able to protect your rights through our qualified lawyers who have a long experience in the Intellectual property field and we can proceed with following legal services:

Cancellation action based on non-use

Actually, use of trademarks in Egypt is not compulsory for filing applications neither for registration nor for maintaining trademark registrations in force. However, a trademark registration is vulnerable to cancellation on the strength of a court's decision obtained to this effect by any interested party.

A cancellation action relies basically on establishing sufficient grounds that the trademark in question has not actually been used seriously in the Egyptian market for a period of five consecutive years.

A trademark registration is consequently canceled unless the owner of the trademark proves that non-use of the trademark was for reasonable causes of which the Court approves.

Cancellation action based on bad faith (Unfair Competition)

According to the Article No. 65 of the Egyptian IP Law, a cancellation action could be filed based on bad faith in case the person who has registered a trademark and who has made use of it for a period of five years as of the date of its registration, shall be deemed the owner of such a trademark, unless precedence of use by a third party is proven. A prior user of the mark may, within the said period of five years, challenge the validity of its registration.

The registration of a mark may, however, be challenged at any time, where the registration is made in bad faith.

If the bad faith has been proven the plaintiff may ask the court to obligate the owner of the trademark registration to pay him a suitable compensation for the unfair competition.

Iclipa has a long experience in this regard since we are handling huge lawsuits related to unfair competition.

Nullifying the Decisions issued from the Administrative Entities.

The Trademark, industrial design or the Patent Office may decide to refuse the trademark, industrial design or patent application upon examination, and then after its rejection is petitioned through the Petition Committee, which is formed by a judge and the head of the Trademark, industrial design or the Patent Office. There are also situations where the Trademark or the Patent Office allows the registration of the trademark or the patent but then refuses to do so based on the opposition of a third party (through the Opposition Committee). In both situations the refusal is considered final and the only way to overcome such refusal is challenging the decision of the Trademark, industrial design or Patent Office by filing a lawsuit before the Administrative Court within sixty days from the notification of the decision(for Patent and Trademarks) and thirty days for the Industrial Design. If the Client obtained a positive judgment from the Administrative Court the trademark, design or patent will then be registered by the concerned Office

We also have enormous collection of judgments in the fields of intellectual property and arbitration which is considered to be an important reference for any similar claim that may occur in the future, also the said precedents will help in solving the future cases and assist the judges to issue their judgments according to such judicial precedents.

Anti counterfeiting and infringement

We are representing our clients in order to protect their Intellectual Property rights and carry out the necessary procedures and steps on behalf of them either to carry out the criminal procedures by filing complaints before the competent entities or Civil action by filing unfair competition case before the competent Courts in order to prevent any third party from infringe our client’s rights, patent, trademark, copyright, Plant Varieties and Industrial Designs. We are leader in this field since our lawyers have long experience in this regard and providing our clients with the accurate advices to protect their IPR. Also we have good relations with official entity

Customs Authority

We corporate with the governmental enforcement agencies in order to protect our clients IPR The requirements for filing an application on behalf of our clients in order to register their trademarks before the Customs Authority are as follows:

  • A certified copy of the client’s trademark registration.
  • A POA duly legalized up to the Egyptian Consulate

However, according to the regulations of the Custom Authority which stipulates that in order to prevent any third party from inserting any counterfeit products to the Egyptian market, the following information must be informed to the said authority:

  • The no. and date of the good’s shipment.
  • The arrival port.
  • The name of the importer