Laws on intellectual property play a key role in safeguarding innovative ideas of entrepreneurs, even as 90% of economies worldwide consists of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups, an official of the Qatar International Centre for Conciliation and Arbitration (Qicca) has said.

Qicca board member for International Relations Sheikh Dr Thani bin Ali al-Thani made the statement during the opening ceremony of the ‘2020 International Virtual Conference Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem’ (ICICEE) held recently.

Sheikh Thani also said Gulf economies adopted strategies to encourage innovation and drive entrepreneurship that achieves economic diversification and reduces the dependence on energy revenues, as well as job creation in the private sector for citizens.

He said innovation plays a pivotal role in achieving economic growth, and stressed that it stimulates the use of new technologies, which improve and develop businesses and reduces cost.

‘Innovation enhances competitiveness, as well as promotes partnerships and expands businesses. Companies that do not adopt innovation are vulnerable to losing their own market share or even leaving the market,’ he stressed.

Elaborating the importance of intellectual property laws, Sheikh Thani said legislation in Arab countries attached a ‘great interest’ to the intellectual property laws, He noted that these laws offer incentives for investment, development, and innovation.

‘These laws allow one person or entrepreneurs to establish their own companies without resorting to forge partnership with others, thus opening the door for entrepreneurs to establish their own companies easily,’ he said.

Sheikh Thani stressed the need for protecting entrepreneurs’ innovations through the various types of intellectual property, such as patents or trade secrets, while inventions and trademarks of products or services are protected by trademark laws.

He also said parties involved in intellectual property disputes have recently resorted to alternative means of dispute resolution, including arbitration and mediation. These provide swift and confidential settlement of the dispute and allow parties to select arbitrators and mediators with high experience in the subject matter of the dispute.

The two-day virtual conference, which was hosted by Kuwait aims to promote entrepreneurship in GCC states and to foster an innovative, creative, and entrepreneurial climate. The forum brought together more than 80 participants from private and public sectors, experts, and leading practitioners in innovation and entrepreneurship.