As part of the World IP Day 2013 activities in Kenya, CIPIT will host a special intellectual property (IP) debate organised by the Aids Law Project (ALP) between students drawn from the local universities. The topic of this debate is: how the Novartis and Patricia Asero court decisions affect public health in developing countries. Although … Continue reading »
Category Archives: International Intellectual Property
Plant Breeders vs Farmers: SADC Draft Protocol for the Protection of New Plant Varieties
Plant Breeders rights became an accepted branch of intellectual property with the adoption of the International Convention for the Protection of New Varieties of Plants (UPOV) in 1961. The Convention protects the variety of the plant not the plant itself therefore the subject matter of protection is the variety and not the whole plant. A … Continue reading »
Collective Rights Management / Copyright / Intellectual Property in Kenya / International Intellectual Property / IP News / Music Copyright Society of Kenya MCSK
Balamine Ouattara: New Regional Director for African Copyright Societies
CISAC, the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers, works towards increased recognition and protection of creators’ rights. CISAC was founded in 1926 and is a non-governmental, non-profit organisation. Its headquarters are in Paris, with regional offices in Budapest, Santiago de Chile, Johannesburg and Singapore. CISAC now reports that Mr. Balamine Ouattara has joined … Continue reading »
International Intellectual Property / Trade marks / Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources and Traditional Cultural Expressions
Constitutional Protection of Traditional Knowledge in Zimbabwe and the Robert Mugabe Fashion Brand
Recently, the people of Zimbabwe went to the polls in a referendum vote for the acceptance or rejection of a draft new Constitution to replace the Lancaster Constitution of 1980, tied with their independence from Britain in 1980. A copy of the Constitution Select Committee (COPAC) Final Draft Constitution is available here. Local media reports … Continue reading »
Contextualising Intellectual Property, Internet Regulation and Justice in the Digital Age
“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every … Continue reading »
Konza or Bust: Intellectual Property and Africa’s Silicon Savannah
A few weeks ago, the President Mwai Kibaki launched a KES 900 Billion ($14.5bn) project to build a new technology city: Konza, intended to be an IT business hub and dubbed “Africa’s Silicon Savannah”. Many may know that Konza is part of the government’s Vision 2030 initiative to improve much-neglected infrastructure over the next two … Continue reading »
Picture of the Day: WTO, WIPO, WHO on Intersections Between Public Health, Intellectual Property and Trade
Yesterday, the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and World Health Organization (WHO) jointly released a report on “Promoting Access to Medical Technologies and Innovation”. This report examines the interplay between public health, trade and intellectual property, and how these policy domains affect medical innovation and access to medical technologies. Read the … Continue reading »
A Comparative Perspective: Why Business Method Patents Cannot Be Too Quickly Dismissed
IPKenya has received a commentary from Moses Njoroge Muchiri, Advocate and Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition Law in Munich, Germany. Muchiri (pictured left) drew my attention to his paper which is comprehensive review of the current legal developments in the protection of computer implemented Business Method Patents (BMPs) comparing … Continue reading »
Finally the SEACONET Model Copyright Law
IP Kenya has received news that the Southern and Eastern Africa Copyright Network (SEACONET) is in the final stages of unveiling the final version of the sample draft law which was adopted during the SEACONET August 2012 meeting in Malawi. Read the full story over at the CIPIT blog here. Continue reading »
Intellectual Property in Kenya / International Intellectual Property / IP News / Kenya Industrial Property Institute KIPI / World Intellectual Property Organisation WIPO
Coming Soon: WIPO – KIPI Seminar on the Madrid System in December
This week’s Law Society of Kenya newsletter contains a notice that the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) in collaboration with Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) is organizing a series of one-day seminars in Kenya intended for business community, trade mark practitioners and representatives of the industrial sector. The objective of the seminars is to familiarize … Continue reading »
