Syria, sanctions and Executive Orders

For a few weeks in February it looked like any US business would have considerable difficulty in undertaking any Intellectual Property work in Syria and any business having instructed IP work in Syria since August 2011 may have been in violation of an Executive Order issued by President Obama.

In February, the US firm Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton LLP produced a very useful Alert, on the effect of Executive Order 13582 issued on 17 August 2011 strengthening US sanctions against Syria. The Executive Order prohibits US persons and entities from engaging in (i) receipt of goods or services from the government of Syria; (ii) payment of funds to the government of Syria; and (iii) The approval or facilitation by a US person of a transaction by a foreign person where the transaction would be prohibited under the Executive Order if performed by a US person (which catches US persons instructing agents elsewhere to manage the IP on their behalf).

The US Treasury Department Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) had issued a series of General Licenses allowing certain activities that would be otherwise prohibited but none of them had extended to IP. OFAC had indicated that a "specific license" must be obtained before engaging in IP transactions including filing, maintaining or renewing IP applications or registrations.

Fortunately, on 22 February 2012, General License No 15 was issued by OFAC authorising certain acts related to patents, trade marks and copyright.

This part of the Empty Quarter likes certainty and feels that General License No. 15 restores at least partial certainty to the ability of US persons and entities to continue to manage their IP in Syria. There is an outstanding question about domain names (which coincides with the Syrian domain name registry implementing new regulations, about which more anon). Of course, the ideal outcome is that the normal order of things is restored and no sanctions, Executive Orders or General Licenses are needed at all.