Since the establishment of Saudi Arabia, it was keen to set up the systems and the regulations to organize trade and investment, for it is one of the first countries in the world that applied the registration to protect the trademarks of companies, institutions, and individuals, that started in the year 1358 H under the name "Distinguish Mark" system.
The first registered trademark was for Saeed Bin Zagar and his partners in the year 1365 H, for "Al-sha'alah" match and its factory. After that, many business establishments started to register their trademarks at the Ministry of Commerce and investment, which worked on protecting them from fraud practices and counterfeiting and applied the law on the violators as stated in the system of commercial trademarks and the system of combating commercial fraud, in order to safeguard intellectual property rights.
By the end of the current Hijri year which corresponds to the Eighty-sixth anniversary of the establishment of the Kingdom by the efforts of His Majesty the late King Abdul Aziz bin Abdul Rahman Al Saud - may Allah rest his soul - the total registered trademarks at the ministry reached 183.184 trademarks for companies, institutions, and individuals.
The past three years have witnessed a growth in the registration process by 45% after the number of registered trademarks in the year 2015 reached "18809", where is were only "12982" in the year 2014.
The observer of the business sector in the Kingdom will notice the efforts that Saudi Arabia present to the enterprises and individuals like protecting their trademarks which now can be achieved electronically. MCI launched the e-system to register the trademarks in the year 1434 H to facilitate the business practice in 7 working days instead of 20 working days by personal visit and paper documents, also to limit the time of announcement issuance from 180 business days to instant issuance.
The electronic registration includes the logo - which is the identity of the product - and consider it a material value in itself to safeguard the intellectual right against using it by another party.
The "electronic trademark registration" service got the Achievement Award for online government transactions for strengthening the national economy field for the third year in 2014, which was a contribution to reduce the time required for trademark registration by using the latest technology , which contributed to the rise of trademark registration by 47% which help to protect the rights of business owners and the owners of trademarks.