Insight
AI, Copyright and Intellectual Property: Protecting Innovation in the GCC
Ninety-two percent of S&P 500 market value is now intangible. The legal frameworks governing that value in the GCC have changed materially. Businesses that have not updated their IP strategy are carrying risk they have not yet priced.
· 3 min read · By Jonathan Hirasawa Ashton – Managing Partner, UAE
The Value Migration
Ocean Tomo’s 2025 Intangible Asset Market Value Study establishes that intangible assets now constitute approximately 92 percent of the market capitalisation of the S&P 500, up from 17 percent in 1975. Among the largest index constituents, Apple, Nvidia, Mastercard and their peers, the figure approaches 98 percent. That value is constituted, in legal terms, by a bundle of enforceable rights: patents, trademarks, trade secrets, copyright, database rights, and the contractual frameworks that govern how those rights are licensed, assigned, and defended.
The GCC is not immune to this dynamic. The UAE has climbed to 30th in the WIPO Global Innovation Index 2025, the highest position any Arab economy has held. Saudi Arabia’s institutional patent applications rose approximately 80 percent year-on-year in 2025. The GCC Unified Trademark Law is now operational across all six member states, creating for the first time a single enforceable trademark territory across the region. The enforcement infrastructure is improving. The question is whether businesses are using it.
The Authorship Problem in AI-Generated Content
Copyright protection in the UAE is governed by Federal Law No. 38 of 2021 on Copyrights and Related Rights. The law protects original works of authorship. “Author” is defined as the natural person who creates the work. Where an AI system generates text, images, music, code, or other content without determinative human creative input, the question of copyright subsistence is legally unresolved under UAE law.
This is not a theoretical concern. If your business produces AI-generated marketing materials, legal documents, technical specifications, or creative content and uses that content commercially, you may be asserting copyright in material that does not qualify for protection. Conversely, if a competitor reproduces your AI-generated content, your ability to enforce against that reproduction may be compromised if you cannot demonstrate the human authorship elements that give rise to protection.
The UAE AI Act 2026 intersects with this question through its transparency and documentation requirements. AI systems that produce content in regulated use cases must, in certain circumstances, disclose the AI origin of that content. That disclosure obligation creates an evidentiary record that will be relevant in future IP disputes. Businesses should document their content production workflows now, identifying which elements involve determinative human authorship and which are AI-generated.
Patent Strategy: The Updated GCC Infrastructure
In July 2025, the UAE signed an Accelerated Patent Grant Agreement with the US Patent and Trademark Office. This agreement enables applicants who have filed in the USPTO and meet the qualifying criteria to obtain accelerated examination in the UAE, materially shortening the time between application and grant. For businesses with active R&D programmes, this is a commercially significant development.
In Saudi Arabia, SAIP achieved accreditation as an International Searching and Preliminary Examining Authority under the Patent Cooperation Treaty in 2025, the first IP office in the Middle East to do so, and joined WIPO’s Digital Access Service. The practical implication is that Saudi patent filings are now more efficiently linked to international prosecution strategies.
Software-implemented inventions and AI-driven methods are patentable in the GCC under specific conditions. The application must claim a technical effect beyond the software itself. Businesses with proprietary algorithms, machine learning models, or automated decision systems should obtain specialist IP counsel to assess patentability before public disclosure, which starts the clock on prior art.
IP Audit: The Minimum Compliance Position
Businesses operating in the GCC should conduct an IP audit that covers four questions. First, what assets does the business own or use that qualify as IP, including AI-generated outputs, training data, models, brand elements, and confidential know-how? Second, what rights have been registered, and are those registrations current and correctly owned by the intended entity? Third, what contractual arrangements govern IP created by employees, contractors, or in joint ventures, and do those arrangements reflect current law? Fourth, where the business uses third-party AI tools, what do the applicable licence terms say about ownership of outputs?
That fourth question is increasingly material. Major AI platform providers have adopted varying positions on output ownership in their terms of service. A business that uses a third-party AI tool to generate a product design, a legal document, or a marketing campaign needs to understand what rights it actually holds before it asserts, assigns, or licences that output.
This article is general information about the law at the date of publication. It is not legal advice and should not be relied on as such. For advice on your circumstances, talk to counsel.
