There has been a considerable drop over the last three years in the average time it usually takes to complete the trademark registration process in a number of countries from our region, namely United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, and Yemen. The table below shows the actual average time periods between the filing dates and the publication dates of trademark applications published over the years 2007, 2008, and 2009 in the above countries. The data was retrieved from the Official Gazettes/Trademark Journals issued during the course of the past three years. By adding the opposition period to the calculated times, we can somewhat estimate the actual registration completion time frames recorded for the years 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Country	Filing to Publication (months)			Opposition Period	Total Time from Filing to Registration (months)
	2007	2008	2009		2007	2008	2009
United Arab Emirates	14.78	17.02	7.91	Approximately 1 month	15.78	18.02	8.91
Jordan	5.71	5.39	5.81	3 months	8.71	8.39	8.40
Kuwait	16.67	12.07	7.68	Approximately 1 month	17.67	13.07	8.68
Oman	8.48	8.22	5.71	Approximately 3 months	11.48	11.22	8.71
Qatar	8.08	6.17	6.37	4 months	12.08	10.17	10.12
Saudi Arabia	7.78	9.78	6.62	Approximately 3 months	10.78	12.78	9.62
Syria	9.57	8.87	7.75	Approximately 3 months	12.57	11.87	10.75
Yemen	5.88	6.86	4.40	6 months	11.88	12.86	10.40

 Main Observations:
1. There was a significant decrease over the years 2007 to 2009 in the time it took for a trademark application to be published in UAE, Kuwait, Oman, and Saudi Arabia. This means that the average examination period in these countries has dropped over this time period.

2. Kuwait witnessed the highest drop in the average time it took for an application to be published, from 1 year and 4 months to almost 7 months in 2009. Also, based on the 2009 records, we can estimate that, in the absence of any opposition, it took around 8 months on average for a trademark to be registered in Kuwait (as compared to 1 year and 5 months in 2007), which is notably the shortest time frame recorded among all countries in 2009.

3. The drop in the average time it took for an application to be published in Oman was also significant: from 8 months in 2007 to almost 6 months in 2009.

4. The average time it took for an application to be published in Jordan was relatively stable between the years 2007 and 2009.

5. Yemen showed the shortest publication wait time in 2009: an average time of 4 months.






The above trends clearly show the efforts of the Trademark Offices of countries of our region over the past 3 years towards improving their registration practices in an attempt to enhance operations in general and provide applicants with an adequate intellectual property rights registration system.