Syria Requests Legalized PoA for All IP Applications

DAMASCUS - Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) would like to notify its clients that the Syrian Trademark Office has been recently requesting the Powers of Attorney (PoA) to be duly legalized up to the Syrian consulates abroad, which subsequently involves obtaining the Interior Ministry's approval and super-legalization on this document by the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

This practice comes in compliance with the Interior Ministry's regulations to obtain clearing approval on the Powers of Attorney for all Intellectual Property applications in Syria (trademarks, designs, patents, recordals…).

The procedure of super-legalizing the Power of Attorney in Syria takes (2 - 3 months) and involves extra cost. The late filing of the PoA within the subsequent six-month grace period is also surcharged with fine payment per month/application.

The Trademark Office’s demand is to be applied on all the pending applications retroactively, therefore, we ask our valued clients who have pending application(s) filed as of January 1, 2010 (supported with a notarized PoA) to presently provide us with a PoA legalized up to the Syrian consulate.

It’s worth mentioning that the advantage of one Power of Attorney legalized up to the Syrian consulate is that it can be used permanently, since AGIP Syria office will deposit it at the Notary Public in Damascus, and extract original copies thereof locally for the number of the applications required as well as each time we receive instructions to attend to new IP procedure in Syria. Consequently, it will no longer be necessary to send us new Powers of Attorney for the future matters.