Tunis — According to the daily Arabic language newspaper "Assahafa", 33 patent applicants have registered their inventions at the National Institute of Standardization and Industrial Property (INNORPI) in 2009. By comparison, in 1999 only 5 applications were submitted.

The newspaper adds that so far 16 university research labs and units have protected their inventions and that over the past five years; some 113 copy rights applications were filed.

Mr. Ayman Makki, the Director-General of the Director-General of INNORPI, announced recently that the Institute received 104 patents from Tunisia and some 500 patent s by non-residents adding that in 2009, the Institute organized two training sessions with a view to increase the number of patents to 200 by 2014.

Tunisia has been a member of the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) since December 10, 2001.

The PCT is an international patent law treaty which provides a unified procedure for filing patent applications to protect inventions in each of its member states. A patent application filed under the PCT is known as a PCT application.

The provisions of the patent law in Tunisia stipulate that a patent application should be filed before the invention has been published, or used, or has otherwise received sufficient publicity to allow it to be put into practice either in Tunisia or abroad.

A patent is valid for 20 years as of the date of filing the patent application. The validity of PCT applications is calculated from the international filing date. Annuities are payable as of the date of filing. A late fine, which may be calculated at the rate of 8% of the due annuity, is payable when the annuity is paid within the 6-month grace period, per annuity and per month.