AMMAN - Officials at the Industrial Property Protection Directorate (IPPD) at the Jordanian Ministry of Industry and Trade revealed to ag-IP-news Agency that the year 2007 has witnessed an obvious rise in the number of trademark applications and approvals compared to those of 2006.

The Directorate stated that the number of trademarks which received final approval in 2007 totaled 6823 compared to 5792 for 2006; the increase's percentage reached up to 18%.

So far, primary approvals have been granted to 6846 trademarks in 2007; whereas in 2006 about 6490 applications were approved.

The number of trademark applications submitted to the Directorate in 2007 totaled 9137 compared to 8013 in 2006; the increase's percentage reached up to 16%.

The Industrial Property Protection Directorate takes on the supervisory role of all matters related to the registration of trademarks, patents, industrial designs, models and integrated circuits as well as indexing them in an effort to provide the adequate protection in accordance with the current laws. The Directorate also handles all cooperation efforts with international organizations dealing with Intellectual Property.