The Dubai Department of Economy and Tourism (DET) and Dubai Future Foundation (DFF) have made their Intellectual Property Clinic a permanent, ongoing service for eligible Emirati founders, after a pilot phase validated the approach.
Each session is one-to-one, led by DFF, and begins with the founder’s business rather than a registration form. The goal is to help founders identify which brand assets may be worth protecting, understand trademark classes and ownership structures, and decide on practical next steps before they engage with any filing process.
The rationale is commercial as much as procedural. Clear brand ownership, the two organisations argue, matters not just to founders but to investors and franchise partners who increasingly look for established IP before committing capital or entering a licensing arrangement.
“For many entrepreneurs, some of the most valuable assets they create are intangible; their brand, identity and the ideas that differentiate their business. Protecting those assets early can become an important foundation for growth. Through the IP Clinic, we are helping Emirati founders move from awareness to action: understanding what they have created, what may be worth protecting and how stronger ownership can support investment, franchising and expansion. This practical capability-building supports Dubai Economic Agenda, D33’s ambition to develop competitive national SMEs that can scale from Dubai into global markets,” Ahmad Al Room Almheiri, CEO of the Mohammed Bin Rashid Establishment for Small and Medium Enterprises Development (Dubai SME), part of DET said in a statement.
“The strongest intellectual property strategies for new businesses begin before an application is even filed. They start with understanding what makes the business distinctive and where its future value may lie. The IP Clinic gives Emirati founders a focused, one-to-one environment to make informed decisions early and translate them into practical next steps, creating the foundations for longer term success and growth,” Khalifa Al Qama, Chief of Research, Development and Innovation, at DFF added.
The IP Clinic sits within the Dubai IP Hub, which DFF and the UAE Ministry of Economy launched in 2024 as a broader support infrastructure for innovators and entrepreneurs across planning, registration and commercialisation.
The initiative is framed as a contribution to Dubai Economic Agenda D33, which targets doubling the size of Dubai’s economy by 2033 and positioning the emirate as an international hub for SMEs. Eligible Emirati founders can register interest through dubaifuture.ae/ip-clinics.
