During 26-28 October 2022, the CARIFORUM Intellectual Property and Innovation project held an in-person Training Workshop for the CARIFORUM IP Offices in Castries, Saint Lucia.
On 21-23 September 2022, the EU Georgia Intellectual Property project (EUGIPP) and the National Intellectual Property Center of Georgia (Sakpatenti) will continue the series of stakeholder consultations to discuss the draft guidelines and law amendments related to IP rights enforcement practices.
Although the African Regional Intellectual Property Office (ARIPO) has existed since 1976, not many citizens from its 22 member states understand its core business and the benefit of filing through the ARIPO system. This can be attributed to the limited awareness of the system’s intellectual property (IP) and its benefits.
Universities, research and development (R&D) institutions and other innovation associations increasingly leverage their intellectual property (IP) internationally, as they diversify their contributions beyond just imparting knowledge to their students. In contrast, African universities generally have a low level of awareness, including in the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) member states. Specifically, on how to harness and use IP from research and other academic activities for their benefit.
The Nigeria Intellectual Property (IP) Office has a vast quantity of paper-based trade marks that need to be scanned to migrate the data to the back office system (IPAS). As a result, it has been selected as the pilot office to give support for this digitalisation process. The first steps were taken during Annual Work Plan 1, and these efforts continued under Annual Work Plan 2.
Digitalising and modernising IP administrations of African countries will make the systems more cost effective, reliable and responsive to (especially small and micro) businesses’ needs.