Legalisation of Powers of Attorney in Iraq

The Trade Mark Office in Iraq requires that an original Power of Attorney from the applicant is submitted with the application. The Power of Attorney cannot be from an agent on behalf of the applicant unless the original Power of Attorney from the applicant to the agent is also submitted (see here for earlier post).

The Power of Attorney must be legalised before being submitted to the Trade Mark Office. That involves legalisation to the Iraqi Embassy in the country of execution. The Power of Attorney must then be stamped by the Tax Department in Iraq, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Iraq and Ministry of Justice in Iraq all of which can take more than four months. The hint of a silver lining is that there are no additional fees for the late filing of the Power of Attorney.

This part of the Empty Quarter continues to hope that countries will do away with the need for legalisation as it is an unnecessary administrative and financial burden on rights holders which acts as a barrier to entry to the market and delays the processing of applications for marks.