The Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) and the UAE Ministry of Economy have launched the Dubai Intellectual Property Hub (DIPH), the UAE’s first centralized intellectual property (IP) and intangible assets (IA) hub aimed at empowering innovators, artists, entrepreneurs, researchers, academics, and startups. 

The platform was announced during the IP2024: Glimpse on the Future of IP event at the Museum of the Future, where a memorandum of understanding was signed between the UAE Ministry of Economy and DFF. Under the MoU, the Ministry of Economy’s feature for registering IA will be integrated into the Dubai Intellectual Property Hub. 

Reinforcing Dubai’s position as a centre for technology, the new platform is expected to benefit a wide range of entrepreneurs, innovators, startups, artists, creatives, innovators, researchers and academics working in fields such as creative design, sustainability, health, education and the legal sector. 

Minister of Economy Abdullah Bin Touq Al Marri highlighted the UAE’s unwavering commitment to fostering a vibrant ecosystem that nurtures innovation, stimulates the development of ideas, and supports the growth of creative businesses. The nation has built a comprehensive legislative and institutional framework, further bolstered by integrated services designed to protect intellectual property rights across all sectors, in alignment with international best practices. These endeavours are pivotal in realizing the aspirations of the “We the UAE 2031” vision, which seeks to position the UAE as a global leader in the new economy and among the top 10 destinations worldwide for talent and creativity over the next decade. 

Al Marri added that the launch of the Dubai IP Hub, in collaboration with the Dubai Future Foundation, marks a crucial advancement in fortifying intellectual property protections for the creative industries, both in Dubai and across the UAE. This strategic initiative equips entrepreneurs, authors, creatives, and researchers with the necessary tools and resources to secure and formalize their innovations, thereby reinforcing the nation's economy, which is increasingly driven by creativity and innovation. 

Khalfan Belhoul, CEO of the DFF, said: “The collaboration with the Ministry of Economy in developing this platform is part of ongoing efforts to advance the UAE’s legislative framework, strengthen the readiness of all economic sectors, and create a robust R&D ecosystem. By providing vital tools for businesses to thrive, we aim to support their growth and expansion within the UAE, the region, and on a global scale.” 

Focusing on four main pillars, DIPH will provide guidelines for registering all types of intellectual property through a seamless digital experience. It will offer a comprehensive and trusted source of information as well as guidance on IP protection and commercial exploitation by providing tools and resources to develop IP strategies. 

One of the hub’s main features is a seamless digital interface that centralizes all relevant information, tools, guidelines and resources in a single, easily accessible place. 

The hub suggests that the UAE – a country made up of seven separate emirates, including Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as Ajman, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah, Sharjah and Umm Al Quwain – may soon see a boom in the local IP legal market. In this issue, we pay tribute to many of the best IP lawyers in the country by presenting our UAE Top 40 IP Experts list. We asked a large number of IP professionals in the region, who are mostly in-house counsel and corporate legal managers, about what they were looking for from their legal service providers, to understand better what clients need and want today. Based on these answers, we have compiled our list of the Top 40 IP experts in the UAE, lawyers who can best understand what their clients need and provide them with the best practical advice. 

Our list is categorized with the specialized fields of the experts, including patents, trademarks, copyright, enforcement, licensing and franchising, media and entertainment, IT and telecoms, pharma and biotech, and IP litigation. A total of 40 top experts from 25 law firms are presented, including the UAE’s largest IP firms and practices. Some of the region’s top firms are heavily represented in the list: Al Tamimi & Company placed four lawyers on our list (Rasha Al-Ardah, Omar Obeidat, Ahmad Saleh and Ahmad Zaza), while CWB (Cameron Crawford, Halim Shehadeh and Theuns van de Merwe), Gowling WLG (Tamara El-Shibib, Noor Hasan and Jon Parker), Hadef & Partners (James Dunne, Rami Omar and Victoria Woods) and Rouse (Bassel El Turk, Sara Holder and Paul Muscat) each placed three lawyers.  

Most of the lawyers named to our list have multiple practice specialties. Many of them are litigators, while others concentrate on prosecution work or provide strategic advice.  

All of them have something in common: they are experts in their fields and, in one way or another, they provide extra value for their clients. They are Asia IP’s UAE IP Experts. – GREGORY GLASS

The United Arab Emirates’ IP Experts is based solely on independent editorial research conducted by Asia IP. As part of this project, we turned to thousands of in-house counsel in the Middle East, Asia and around the world, as well as UAE-focused partners at international law firms, and asked them to nominate private-practice lawyers, including foreign legal consultants, advisers and counsel. 

The final list reflects the nominations received combined with the input of the editorial team at Asia IP, which has more than 50 years of collective experience in researching and understanding the legal market in Asia and the Middle East. 

All private practice intellectual property lawyers working at law firms in Japan were eligible for inclusion in the nomination process; there were no fees or any other requirements for inclusion in the process. 

The names of our 40 IP Experts are published here. Each IP Expert was given the opportunity to include their biography and contact details in print and on our website, for which a fee was charged.