UAE Trademark Law and Relevant Concepts

Business Law Assignment
UAE Trademark Law and Relevant Concepts

Synopsis 1.
The defense regarding infringement in trademark law selected for this synopsis is
“Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights”, which is provided and explained in
Article 16(1) of the UAE trademark law. Trademark infringement can be defined as the
unauthorized utilization of service-mark or trademark on related or competing services and
goods.
Under the defense of Article 16(1), owning a registered trademark presents an
exclusive right for the owners. This defense prevents every third party from utilizing a
similar trade course without the owner’s consent. There can be similarities in terms of the
services or goods registered under the trademark which leads towards the chances of
confusion (Dutta & Coury, 2002). However, it is further specified under Article 16(1) that
these rights will not prejudice any previous current rights and also not influence the chance
for availability of WTO member’s rights as per specific utilization.
In order to explain this defense to trademark infringement, the recent case of Red
Bull will be discussed who won the cause against an importer of UAE to sell Bullfighter, a
competitive product. The importer was imposed a fine worth 4,088 Dollars (15,000
Dirhams) for trademark infringement (Massadeh & Al-Nusair, 2017). Red Bull operates
through its trademark registered under UAE law reserving exclusive rights to protect its
distinctive design, symbol, name and logo.
Red Bull presented the argument that the customers were being mislead by the
competitors due to its similar packaging and name as endorsed by Red Bull (Price &
AlDebasi, 2017). The court reviewed that Bullfighter adopted this product intentionally
appropriating Red Bull’s reputation and capitalizing itself on the company’s market share,
effective marketing, and reputation.

Synopsis 2.
The second defense selected for this discussion is the protection of trade mark under
UAE trademark law. Trade dress can be defined as a legal construct which considers the
physical appearance of a specific product like texture, structure, design, and color. This law
is necessary for arming appropriate legal tools to product design owner (Umarvasylyeva &
Narciso, 2016). The product design owners can deter any third party who tries to knock it
off with the same or similar design.
The trademark office of UAE considered to include registration of trademark under a
single color within the legal system of 2007. This was incorporated after a case was file
regarding a range of rice production by Uncle Ben. The color utilized for this packaging was
a specific orange shade, as a distinct feature used by customers to recognize the product.
Under Article 2 of the UAE trademark law, the trademark for the orange color packaging of
Uncle Ben’s rice was secured (Fouda, 2016). There was acceptance and registration of the
color trade by the UAE trademark officer under class 30 of the categories. These categories
are provided by WIPO (World Intellectual Property Organization) illustrating that the
trademark office of UAE protect less- known trademarks as well.
In another case, Pfizer considered broadly advertising its Viagra pill through its
appearance a blue pill. Due to its promotion, UAE customers started referring to Viagra as
“the little blue pill” (Kaul, 2018). Therefore, Pfizer registered its product under the
classification of diamond shaped, blue color pills. As a result, Pfizer was able to protect its
trade dress of the pill.
Memo Proposal
MEMO