Masar is the new generation of IP practice in Iraq — searches, filings, enforcement and strategy across two Iraqi registries, twenty MENA jurisdictions, and 180+ countries through the Madrid System.
Tell us what matters — we'll point you to the right protection in one tap.
End-to-end intellectual property services — from securing your rights to enforcing them.
Secure your brand name and logo across Iraq, Kurdistan, and the GCC — clearance search, filing, prosecution and certificate, handled end to end.
↗ SVC / 02Protect your inventions with expert patentability assessment and filing.
↗ SVC / 03Safeguard creative and software works and structure licensing deals.
↗Anti-counterfeiting, customs action, and litigation to defend your rights.
↗Portfolio audits and strategy that align your IP with your business goals.
↗Ongoing renewals, monitoring, and management across every jurisdiction.
↗Powers of attorney and corporate documents legalized for Baghdad and Kurdistan.
↗ SVC / 08IP and commercial disputes before the Iraqi courts, up to the Court of Cassation.
↗Arabic–English legal and technical translation, certified for filings, legalization, and the courts.
↗Everything an invention needs in Federal Iraq and the Kurdistan Region — searching, drafting, filing, prosecution, renewals and enforcement, handled end to end by one team.
Usually handled alongside patents in Iraq.
Deposit and defend creative, software and media works in Iraq, and put the commercial agreements around them on solid legal ground — licensing, franchising, distribution and technology transfer.
Evidence of ownership and of date — the record you want in a dispute, a financing round, or a tender.
For mergers and acquisitions, investment rounds and licensing deals.
Foreign brands entering Iraq need franchise and distribution contracts drafted to comply with Iraqi law.
Iraq runs two trademark administrations — the federal Registry in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Region registry in Erbil — and a mark is rarely finished at registration. Below is the full lifecycle, described the way a foreign filer needs to hear it.
A search of the federal register in Baghdad and the Kurdistan register in Erbil for identical and confusingly similar marks in the classes you plan to use, together with a view on the absolute grounds Iraqi examiners apply — marks that are merely descriptive, deceptive, or contrary to public order.
Before you file, before you commit to packaging and signage, and before you sign a distribution or franchise agreement that assumes the brand is available in Iraq.
Iraq is a first-to-file country. A prior mark you did not know about can block your application after the official fees are paid, and those fees are not returned.
Preparing and filing the application, then carrying it through formal and substantive examination, publication in the official gazette, the opposition window, and the issue of the registration certificate. We file in Baghdad, in the Kurdistan Region, or in both, depending on where you actually trade.
As soon as you have a mark you intend to use, license, or franchise in Iraq — ideally before your goods arrive.
Registration is what lets you stop counterfeits, act through customs, and license the brand to a local partner. Without a certificate every one of those steps is slower, weaker, and more expensive.
Filing on behalf of a foreign company requires a legalized power of attorney. We handle that as a standalone service too.
Changing an application that is already on file — the applicant name or address, the list of goods and services, the representation of the mark, or the correction of clerical errors.
After a merger, a corporate name change, or a relocation; when an examiner objects to part of the specification; or when the original filing described your business too broadly or too narrowly.
An application that no longer matches your corporate reality can be refused outright, or can mature into a certificate that is hard to rely on in court or at customs.
Two sides of the same procedure. We file oppositions against published third-party marks that conflict with yours, and we prepare and file counterstatements defending your own application when it is opposed.
Within the statutory window that runs from publication in the gazette. These periods are short and are not routinely extended.
Opposition is the cheapest moment at which a conflicting mark can be stopped. Once it registers, removing it means a cancellation action, which takes far longer and costs far more.
We can watch the gazette on your behalf so an opposition deadline never passes unnoticed.
Renewing the registration before it expires, and holding the deadline in our docket so that it does not depend on your internal calendar.
In the period leading up to each expiry date, and during any grace period that follows it.
A lapsed mark is open ground. In a first-to-file system someone else can register it, and you may end up negotiating to buy your own brand back.
Recording changes against the register: assignment and merger, change of the owner name or address, and licence recordal where you have appointed a local distributor, franchisee, or manufacturer.
Immediately after the corporate or contractual event that caused the change.
The Registry acts on what is recorded, not on what is true elsewhere. If the register still shows the previous owner, renewals, oppositions, customs actions and court claims can all fail on standing. Licence recordal also allows a licensee use to count as use of your mark.
A document signed abroad is not accepted in Iraq on its face. It has to travel through a chain of certifications before an Iraqi official will look at it, and the Kurdistan Region adds a second leg on top of the first. We run that chain for you — whether or not you have an IP matter with us.
We draft the power of attorney in the form Iraqi authorities expect, in Arabic or bilingual, and take it through notarization, the foreign ministry in the country of origin, the Iraqi embassy or consulate, and finally the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad.
Any time a foreign company must be represented in Iraq: an IP filing, a court case, a branch or company registration, a public tender, or a banking matter.
A POA with the wrong wording, the wrong signatory, or one missing stamp is refused at the counter, and the whole chain has to restart in the country of origin. Getting the drafting right the first time is most of the value.
Legalization of certificates of incorporation, commercial register extracts, board resolutions, signatory authorities, articles of association, contracts, and the certified Arabic translations that go with them.
Registering a branch or representative office, bidding for public tenders, opening a bank account, signing agency and distribution agreements, or producing evidence in a dispute.
Ministries, courts and state buyers in Iraq each have their own tolerance for defects. We check the document against the requirements of the authority that will receive it before it is sent, not after it is refused.
Presentation and legalization before the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Baghdad and, where the receiving body requires it, before the relevant ministry or authority as well.
For anything to be used before federal institutions: the federal Trademark Registry, federal courts, ministries, and state-owned enterprises.
This is the step that turns a foreign document into one an Iraqi official will accept. It is also the step most often missed by companies who assume an embassy stamp is the end of the road.
Legalization before the Kurdistan Region authorities in Erbil. The Region will not legalize a foreign document that has not already been legalized in Baghdad, so the two legs run in sequence: Baghdad first, then Kurdistan.
For matters before the Kurdistan Region registry, the courts of the Region, and Kurdistan Regional Government bodies.
Companies routinely send documents straight to Erbil and lose weeks. Planning both legs from the outset is faster and cheaper than discovering the order the hard way.
You do not need an IP case with us to use this service. Send us the document and tell us which authority will receive it; we run the chain, track it at each stage, keep you updated, and return the legalized original.
Whenever your in-house legal or corporate team needs Iraq-ready documents but has no local agent to walk them through the ministries.
Legalization is procedural, but it is where foreign files stall most often. Handing it to a local firm removes weeks of correspondence and the risk of restarting the chain abroad.
We appear before the Iraqi courts for foreign companies in two kinds of case: disputes about intellectual property rights, and ordinary commercial disputes that have nothing to do with IP. Where the outcome justifies it, we follow the case through the Court of Cassation.
Bringing infringement claims before the competent Iraqi court on the basis of a registered trademark or patent: proving the right, proving the infringement, and asking the court to stop it and to award compensation. We also coordinate the case with customs recordation and administrative action where that gives faster leverage.
When counterfeits reach the market, when a distributor keeps trading on your brand after termination, or when a local party registers or uses a mark that is confusingly close to yours.
A registration that is never enforced trains the market to ignore it. One well-run case usually changes the behaviour of several other infringers at the same time.
Acting for you when the claim comes the other way: defending against an infringement action, answering a cancellation or invalidation case brought against your registration, and challenging the validity or the scope of the right the other side is relying on.
When a competitor or a former partner sues you in Iraq, or when your Iraqi registration is attacked after you enter the market.
IP claims in Iraq are often filed to create leverage in a commercial negotiation. Responding properly and early usually costs less than the settlement the other side is hoping to force.
We also litigate disputes that have no intellectual property element: contract and supply disputes, agency, distribution and franchise terminations, debt recovery, construction and services contracts, shareholder and joint-venture disagreements, and claims involving Iraqi state entities.
When a commercial relationship in Iraq breaks down and negotiation has stopped producing results, or when you are named as a defendant and need local representation quickly.
Foreign companies often discover that their contract, their evidence, and their notices were prepared for a different legal system. We work with what exists and present it in the form an Iraqi court can act on.
Following the case beyond first instance: appeals, and where the point is worth it, review before the Court of Cassation, which examines the application of the law rather than re-running the facts.
After an adverse judgment, or after a favourable one that the other side has challenged.
A first-instance result in Iraq is rarely the end of the matter. Knowing at the outset how a judgment will read on cassation shapes how the case should be pleaded from day one.
Different clients need different things from an IP firm. Find the approach that fits yours.
Clear pricing and a simple path to protecting your first trademark before you launch.
Entering the Iraqi market? We act as your local IP agent and handle every filing.
Portfolio management, renewals tracking, and consolidated reporting across jurisdictions.
Reliable local counsel in Iraq and Kurdistan for firms filing on behalf of clients.
We understand your business and assess your IP position.
We confirm availability and build the right protection strategy.
We file and manage the process through to registration.
We monitor, renew, and defend your rights over time.
Every Iraqi trademark passes through the same ten stages. This is the official procedure, start to certificate — so you know where your file is at any moment.
The request to examine the mark is filed, together with the supporting documents required for your case.
The examination fee is paid to the Registry.
The examiner searches the register for any mark identical or so similar as to cause confusion, then refers the file to the Registrar, who accepts it outright, accepts it conditionally, or refuses it.
The application is filed provisionally and the fees are paid by the owner of the mark or by a registration agent — a lawyer of Iraqi nationality.
Once every required document is complete within the legal period, the registration report is drawn up and referred to the Registrar to settle the final decision.
The publication fee falls due.
Marks meeting the legal conditions are published in the Trademark Gazette.
A period of 90 days is allowed for oppositions to be filed and decided in accordance with the law.
The registration certificate fee is paid — failing which the mark is served notice and cancelled.
The certificate issues, carrying every particular required by the law and the regulation.
Source: official flow chart for trademark registration procedures — Trademarks Registry.
Most firms won't tell you until you call. Build your estimate in thirty seconds — then we'll confirm it in writing.
Indicative estimate only. Masar IP confirms a fixed, all-inclusive quote in writing before any work begins.
Get this quote in writing→In Iraq, commerce runs on Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp — and so do counterfeiters. A registration certificate alone will not stop them. Enforcement has to reach where your customers actually are.
Ongoing monitoring is available as a monthly retainer — we watch the platforms, you get a report and we act on what we find.
Request a brand exposure audit→The official Arabic texts, retyped as clean Word documents — searchable, copyable, fully editable. Not scanned images, not locked PDFs. Free to download. Need a PDF? Export one yourself in a click.
The Arabic texts are free. Verified English translations of the same legislation are in preparation and will be offered separately. Need a specific law brought forward? Tell us.
Each text is transcribed verbatim from the official Arabic. Obvious typographical errors are corrected and listed in a corrections table inside the document; anything doubtful is left as-is and flagged in an appendix. Provided for professional reference; it does not constitute legal advice, and the official gazette remains the authoritative text.
Our home jurisdictions — we file, prosecute and enforce ourselves.
Filed and managed through vetted local agents, coordinated by us.
One instruction to us covers the region — no separate agent in every country.
Global filing strategy through the Madrid System and our correspondent network.
Practical guidance on protecting brands and inventions in Iraq and the region — written for business owners, not lawyers.
From clearance search to certificate: the full process, what the Registrar requires, how long each stage takes, and the mistakes that cost applicants months.
Speak with Masar IP today — we'll guide you through every step of protecting your brand and innovations across Iraq and the GCC.