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 first six months of the year 2009 have witnessed a rise in the number of trademarks granted compared to those of 2008.

The Directorate stated that the number of trademarks which received final approval in the first half of this year totaled 3763 compared to 2907 for 2008; the increase rate reached up to 29%.

So far, primary approvals have been granted to 2916 trademarks in 2009; whereas in 2008 about 3984 applications were approved.

The number of trademark applications submitted to the Directorate from January 1, 2009 to June 30, 2009 totaled 3965 compared to 4979 in 2008.

As for the number of trademarks that have been renewed for the first half of 2009; it has reached up to 419 compared to 401 for the same period in the previous year.

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.