Executive Regulation of Note (1) of Article (134) of the Industrial Property Protection Act

At its session of 5 October 2025 (13 Mehr 1404), the Council of Ministers, upon the joint proposal of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, the General Staff of the Armed Forces, and the State Organization for Registration of Deeds and Properties, and pursuant to Note (1) of Article (134) of the Industrial Property Protection Act (enacted 2024 / 1403), approved the Executive Regulation of the said Note as follows:

In this Regulation, the following terms shall have the meanings set out below:

• The Act:The Industrial Property Protection Act, enacted 2024 (1403).
• Registration Authority:The State Organization for Registration of Deeds and Properties.
• Defense Organizations:The Army of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (subject to Article (3) of the Act on the Establishment of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, enacted 1989 / 1368), the Law Enforcement Command of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and the organizations and companies subordinate or affiliated to them.
• Working Group:The Defense Inventions Working Group, composed of a representative of the General Staff of the Armed Forces as chair, appointed by the Chief of the General Staff; a representative of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, appointed by the Minister of Defense; a representative of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology, appointed by its Minister; and a representative of the Registration Authority, appointed by its head.
• Defense Invention:An invention within the scope of Article (1) of the Act that is exclusively defense-related or exclusively related to national security, which, upon proposal of the Registration Authority, is confirmed by the Working Group.
• Disclosure Level:The Working Group’s determination of the prohibition of disclosure, or the public disclosure, of all or part of the information relating to a defense invention.
• Examiner:The experts who review defense-invention patent applications and who, upon nomination by the Working Group and after completing the relevant general and specialized courses and obtaining an invention-examination certificate from the Registration Authority, are responsible for conducting prior-art searches and the substantive examination of defense-invention patent applications.

The filing and examination of a defense-invention patent application for the grant of a patent shall be carried out in accordance with the criteria and provisions of the Act.

Note — Exclusively defense-related applications whose invention is owned by Defense Organizations shall be filed with the Registration Authority by the representative of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics (the Defense Industries Educational and Research Institute), with confidentiality maintained.

The Registration Authority is required to provide, within the Industrial Property Electronic System, the means for applicants to file, at the time of filing, applications for inventions having defense and security applications.

Upon establishing the defense nature of an application, the Registration Authority is required to send a complete copy of its documentation to the Working Group for examination within twenty (20) days from the date of filing. The Working Group is required to provide its opinion to the Registration Authority on the defense nature of the application and its Disclosure Level within thirty (30) days from receipt. In exceptional cases, this period may be extended, with stated reasons, by a further thirty (30) days.

Note 1 — If the Working Group does not provide its opinion within three (3) months from the filing of the application, the patent registration process shall revert to the ordinary, non-defense procedure.

Note 2 — Applications under the Note to Article (2) of this Regulation, whose defense nature has been determined by the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, shall be deemed defense inventions not subject to disclosure (non-disclosable defense inventions).

If the Working Group determines that the invention lacks unity, the applicant may divide the defense-invention application in accordance with Article (24) of the Act. The Disclosure Level of the divisional application shall be determined by the Working Group.

The Working Group is required to review the examiner’s report and, on that basis, notify the Registration Authority of the approval or rejection of the defense-invention claim, together with the Disclosure Level. The Registration Authority is required to issue a patent certificate for an invention approved by the Working Group. For a non-disclosable defense invention, the Registration Authority shall publish only the patent registration number, marked “Defense — Confidential,” in the Industrial Property Electronic System.

An applicant for a defense-invention patent may withdraw the application before the Working Group declares the invention to be defense-related. Withdrawal after the defense nature has been established is prohibited without the Working Group’s authorization.

If the applicant objects to the Working Group’s decision, the applicant may, under the conditions of Article (26) of the Act, submit to the Registration Authority amendments to the claims, or its reasons and defenses. The Registration Authority shall forward the defenses and the claim or amended claims for the Working Group’s reconsideration. The Working Group is required to refer the application for re-examination to an examiner other than the previous one and to render a decision together with two relevant experts selected by the Working Group, who shall have the right to vote. The decision at this stage shall be deemed final.

If the Working Group determines that a patent application concerns a non-disclosable defense invention, all registration costs shall, in accordance with the Act, be borne by the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics.

A non-disclosable defense invention shall not be made the subject of a patent application, a utility-model registration, or an industrial design (specimen of a consumable article), whether domestic, foreign, or international. Exceptions are permitted with the authorization of the Working Group.

The exploitation of the economic rights of a defense invention shall be governed by an agreement between the relevant Defense Organization and the holder of the patent certificate, in compliance with the general principles governing contracts — including fair valuation, the right of beneficial use (usufruct), the non-transferability of the moral rights arising from the patent, and the definition of the scope of the invention’s economic rights and its temporal and subject-matter limits — and subject to the formalities prescribed by the Act.

Where judicial and security authorities make inquiries regarding non-disclosable defense inventions, the Registration Authority is required to refer the matter to the representative of the Ministry of Defense and Armed Forces Logistics, and the said Ministry shall communicate the result to the inquiring authority in accordance with applicable laws and regulations.

Other provisions of the Act — including the formalities for the assignment and transfer of ownership of a registered patent or the transfer of rights arising from an application before a notary public office (subject to Article 58 of the Act), the possibility of pledging or depositing a patent certificate as security (subject to Article 7 of the Act), and the depositary banks holding genetic (genomic) samples (subject to Article 16 of the Act) — are applicable to defense inventions in compliance with the provisions of the Act and this Regulation, the security and protection criteria, and subject to the Working Group’s confirmation.