AFRIPI

On 27 to 29 September 2021, the Africa Intellectual Property Rights and Innovation Project, AfrIPI, (an EU funded IP development action implemented by the European Union Intellectual Property Office - EUIPO), in partnership with the Organisation Africaine de la Propriété Intellectuelle (OAPI), convened a regional workshop of OAPI member countries, in Yaounde, Cameroon, where they shared best practices and explored new synergies in the fight against the proliferation of sub-standard and fake medicines in Africa.

On 18 October, the AfrIPI project will be presented at the EUIPO 17th Liaison Meeting on Cooperation. Main topics will include the launch of the first Africa IP SME helpdesk. Also, Peter Labody (Hungary IP Office) will make a short presentation on the contribution to AfrIPI. AfrIPI project leaders will present the second Annual Work Plan (AWP) that runs from January to December 2022. This second AWP proposal will be brought to the AfriPI Project Steering Committee for approval in November 2021.

The AFRIPI project in partnership with the African Intellectual Property Organisation (OAPI) is organising a regional seminar on the enforcement of intellectual property rights from 20 to 21 October 2021 in Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire. This seminar will be organised for magistrates and court clerks of OAPI member countries and aims to train, inform and sensitise the target audience on the legal instruments in force for a better enforcement of intellectual property rights and to share experiences on related litigation.

In view of the implementation of the substantive examination of patent and utility model applications scheduled for January 2022, the African Intellectual Property Organisation (OAPI) plans, among other things, to strengthen the capacities and to train the patent examiners in order to guarantee a better quality of the examination of applications and titles granted.

The objective is to follow-up on the capacity-building workshop organised by AfriPI in April 2021 (in Abuja) and support the work of National Task Force created at this occasion with a view to suggest a draft law and a plan of action for GIs in Nigeria. The national task force for GIs in Nigeria gathers key players in the legal landscape in Nigeria. This innovative approach seeks to join forces to create an enabling environment for the protection of GIs in Nigeria and ensure the final adoption of the acts (Law and by-law).

The African Union (AU) celebrates  today the African  Innovation Day, which serves as stimulus to promote and highlight creativity and innovation in Africa.

This activity aims to get together, in OAPI 17 Member States, all innovation actors (academia, businesses, and public research bodies) in order to create long-term exchange platforms and establish common working plans. Those will serve to boost innovation and research and support the promotion of inventions and technological innovations

As of 13 August 2021, the Namibian Business and Intellectual Property Authority (BIPA) will be included in TMclass. BIPA will join with the alphabetical list of the Nice classification.

The inclusion of BIPA in TMclass brings the total number of participating national and regional IP offices, including ARIPO, OAPI, WIPO and the EUIPO, to 86.

AfrIPI is organising a workshop for ARIPO member states on the methodology used to achieve harmonisation in trade mark and design registration practices in Europe in the last decade. Will also provide a platform where to consider the benefits and to asses if there is a need to proceed in the future with harmonisation of common practices.