The Status of Intellectual Property Laws in Afghanistan

Intellectual Property (“IP”) has become an ever-important field of law and is deemed to play a significant role in international trade, international economics, foreign direct investments, and technology transmission.  This is because IP has turned into a tool of immense importance for the economic development of nations.

A continuous, and efficient protection of IP will facilitate technology transmission, and encourage foreign investment because foreign businesses will be assured that when they invest in a country with powerful IP laws, the foreign investors will be protected against breaches of their brands, and trade secrets, and other intellectual assets.

The ever-increasing importance of IP caused it to become an integral part of business laws, and consequently forced countries to enact numerous laws and regulations to protect the IP rights of businesses.

Considering the above, and in order to establish a profound legal scheme, it owns for protecting IP rights, Afghanistan, in 2005, joined the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).  Furthermore, in order to afford more protection to IP rights, the Government of Afghanistan has so far enacted 7 laws in this regard, some of which have been already ratified, and the rest are in the process of ratification.  For instance, the Copyrights Law was enacted to protect, the IP rights of authors, designers, artists, and researchers.  Also, Patent Law is another example.  The Commercial Patent Law is designed to protect, patents and patent use in order to provide a distinction between products, and services.  Article 7 of the Patent Law expressly extends its protection to foreign and domestic owners of businesses.

Finally, it must be mentioned that due to the above and continuous efforts of the Government, trust towards a legally protected environment is created among foreign and domestic businesses and entrepreneurs so that they safely implement their business ideas in the Afghan market.