Ahmed Al Mahrouqi is an Associate at Bait Al Qanoon Law Firm’s Dispute Resolution Department having qualified as an advocate in 2019. Ahmed is an experienced bilingual dispute resolution lawyer, with a proven ability to handle various litigation and arbitration matters, ranging from commercial disputes to disputes involving insurance, construction, and employment.

Ahmed worked as a Contracts and Legal Affairs Officer for the Ministry of Defense then as an Associate for an international law firm for four years before joining Bait Al Qanoon.

Can you tell us a little about yourself? How was your journey as a law student to become a well-known IP Lawyer in Oman? 

I started my journey as a law student in SQU and then joined the Ministry of Defence as a Legal and Contract officer.  Afterward, I moved to an International Law firm where I had started a new journey. In 2019, I moved to UK to do the professional diploma for international lawyers, and since 2021, I started working at S&A law firm. Since then, I have been exposed to various areas of Law, but choose to specialize in Intellectual Property Law and Maritime Law.

How did you get into Intellectual Property Rights? 

I have been always attracted to legislations aiming to protect the product of mind. I remember my first intellectual property case; it was a piece that I worked on with full passion and attitude. I was enjoying every single moment while working in that case. From then onward, I decided to specialize in this field alongside Maritime Law.

After working in national disputes, I found it very important to expand and practice IP cases internationally. The World Intellectual Property Organization always plays a very important role with this regard. Nowadays, I am capable of handling domestic and global IP cases.

According to you, what are the scopes and applications of practicing IP rights in Oman in the coming years?

Recently, the application of laws related to Intellectual Property has expanded tremendously. The number of requests for patent and trademark registration in Oman is increasing year after year. Musicians and the rehearsing actresses started to understand the need to protect their work and therefore started registering their rights.

Innovations are expected to remain trending in the upcoming 5 years. Universities started to encourage students to register their innovations, and proudly, I have seen impressive innovations from undergraduate students. Businessman in Oman are paying more attention to invest in innovations. The new Commercial Companies Law allowed entering in a partnership with patent as a share. Yet still the floor did not witness a serious movement to practice such partnership, but it is expected to be practiced in the upcoming few years.

Can you tell us about your typical day at work? What responsibilities does being an IP Lawyer in a firm entail?

My day is like any other litigators’ day, it is always interesting and never followed a repeated rhythm. I attend court, arbitration, or mediation hearing sessions in the morning, meet with clients and experts in some other mornings. Negotiation is something that would take a lot from our daytime. Yet, it is usually the best practical way to solve IP issues.

In the afternoon I usually focus on drafting memorandums and reviewing contracts and providing legal advice. Admin work will always take part of every lawyer’s time.; but thankfully we have a professional admin team which always keep me more focused in legal work and less concerned about admin work.

We have been witnessing the age of Metaverse and NFTs, What is your opinion on metaverse from the perspective of Intellectual property rights?

Metaverse and NFTs are trending. They take the market to different way of trade and in fact derive to new consequences. However, all add-ons in this field are product of mind and it could be protected in different ways. In metaverse for example, many worldwide brands known-companies started to include their non-tangible products in metaverse and others announced their full interest to enter this field in the upcoming 2 years.  How would the product of these companies be protected? What if someone faked Nike’s shoes design and trademark for instance? Who has the jurisdiction to sue the infringement of any of IP rights especially when dealing with ananyms? All these questions are examples of issues which could occur in relation with IP law. 

Copyright also plays an important role in this field. According to recent incidents, plagiarism was a claim from the real author of the non-fungible token (NFT). This issue could be more crucial with valuable NFTs which could be assessed for thousands of dollars or maybe millions.  An argument might also arise with dealing with the transfer of copyrights after the sale of NFT as the buyer will have an exclusive right on the NFT he bought. Many other complex scenarios will require either better understanding from legal practicing individuals or developments in some legislations.     

What do the next 5 years hold for the firm?

Many of the world-leading companies have shown a good attention to such technology so far, and some others are willing to keep it as the main interest in the upcoming years.  No doubt that the world is growing so fast, and this growth will not be organised without a developed legal system.  I am sure that WIPO will play an important role in keeping the whole international community updated with new laws. Internally, the IP legal system is developing but still, it requires lots of improvements to be capable of organizing such a technology.  

Bait Al Qanoon is taking the lead on IP sector in Oman especially with dispute resolution. We are taking the responsibility to raise the legal awareness of the IP rights internally in Oman. We always keep the legal bodies updated of the developments. In the next 5 years, we still see ourselves the leading law firm of Oman and will be recognised as a reference in the GCC region.

What is your advice to students and young lawyers trying to pursue career in Intellectual Property rights?

IP is a very interesting and enriching field to specialise in. I would encourage them to keep themselves updated with the new developments related to patents and copyrights and any other neighbouring rights. Always use logic to understand and to analyse any legal issue. Once you are in the field choose your path by either focusing on drafting contracts and other corporate work, or being a dispute resolution lawyer where you live a new battle every day.