Law of Patents, Layout Designs of Integrated Circuits, Plant Varieties, and Industrial Designs promulgated by Royal Decree No. M/27 of 2004. Country/Territory Saudi Arabia Document type Legislation Date 2004 Source FAO, FAOLEX Subject Cultivated plants Keyword Basic legislation Breeders' rights/farmers' rights Plant production Plant protection Plant variety Planting material/seeds Internal trade International trade Transport/storage Intellectual property rights/patents Geographical area Asia, Middle East, Near East and North Africa, Persian Gulf, Red Sea & Gulf of Aden, Western Asia Entry into force notes This Law enters into force 30 days after its publication in the Official Gazette. Abstract This Law consisting of 65 articles aims at providing full protection for inventions, layout designs of integrated circuits, plant varieties and industrial designs. The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology shall grant the protection document for one of the subject matters of protection. It may either be a patent, a certificate of layout design, a plant patent, or a certificate of an industrial design. The protection document shall not be granted if its commercial exploitation is harmful to life, to human, animal or plant health, or is substantially harmful to the environment (art.4). The applicant may benefit of a priority period from the date of the application, which for plant varieties shall be twelve months. Once the application for plant patent has been examined in terms of formalities, it shall be examined in terms of substance (art.13). The plant patent protection period shall be 20 years from the date of filing the application (25 years for trees). If a person, in good faith, exploits a plant variety, before the date of filing the patent application, or the priority application relating to that plant variety, such a party shall be entitled – despite the issuance of the protection document – to continue to perform these acts without expanding them (art.20). Full text English/Arabic Website wipolex.wipo.int