Saudi Arabia: Commercial Courts to Start Handling Copyrights, Patents Cases

Saudi Arabia: Commercial Courts to Start Handling Copyrights, Patents Cases
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Saudi Arabia: Commercial Courts to Start Handling Copyrights, Patents Cases

Saudi Arabia: Commercial Courts to Start Handling Copyrights, Patents Cases

Commercial courts and departments will start handling copyrights and patents related cases starting February.

The cases will be heard in commercial courts, as well as commercial departments inside general courts across the Kingdom. Meanwhile, the cases filed before that date at the Committee for Examine Patents on Inventions Lawsuits and the committee for copyrights protection, will be resolved through those two committees.

The Supreme judicial council approved the shift and the justice ministry worked on a plan to train judges on copyrights system and how to handle patents disputes inside commercial courts.

“We want to ensure providing the best judicial principles and training on intellectual property system based on research and study” said the Saudi Ministry of Justice.

“We are collecting the previous work done by related committees that looked into those cases in order to prepare for the shift,” it added.

Previously, there were two committees that handle intellectual property rights related cases; one is the Committee for Examine Patents on Invention Lawsuits, and the second is the committee to handle violations of the copyrights protection system.



Kuwait Jails 13 Citizens, Fines them $87 Mn for Hezbollah Funding

A general view of the Kuwait Palace of Justice in Kuwait City, June 16, 2013. (Reuters)
A general view of the Kuwait Palace of Justice in Kuwait City, June 16, 2013. (Reuters)
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Kuwait Jails 13 Citizens, Fines them $87 Mn for Hezbollah Funding

A general view of the Kuwait Palace of Justice in Kuwait City, June 16, 2013. (Reuters)
A general view of the Kuwait Palace of Justice in Kuwait City, June 16, 2013. (Reuters)

Kuwait’s Court of Cassation on Monday sentenced 13 citizens to three years in prison for raising funds through a charity to support Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

The court also fined them 27 million Kuwaiti dinars ($87 million), overturning a previous acquittal by a lower court.

The court that issued the sentencing was presided over by Judge Abdullah Jassim Al-Abdullah.

Initially, the Criminal Court had acquitted the defendants, citing the absence of legislation explicitly criminalizing unlicensed fundraising for public purposes since the establishment of Kuwait's Social Affairs Department on December 14, 1954.

The court said this legal gap limited its authority under Article 132 of the Code of Criminal Procedures and Trials. However, the decision was reversed by the higher court.

The defendants had been interrogated in November 2021 over alleged financial support to organizations linked to Hezbollah.

At the time, the Public Prosecution ordered their detention, and security authorities conducted extensive investigations into financial transfers suspected of funding such groups in Lebanon.

The case dates back to November 2021. The charges included significant financial transfers made over several years to foreign entities, including in Lebanon, prompting authorities to scrutinize transaction records.

The defendants denied the charges, claiming they had worked with a charity committee for 30 years, primarily sponsoring orphans in Lebanon and other countries.

In March 2024, the Court of Cassation classified Hezbollah as a banned terrorist group, describing it as an armed organization working to undermine Kuwait’s system and spread Iran’s revolutionary ideology.

The ruling officially confirmed Hezbollah’s designation as a terrorist entity under Kuwaiti law.