Utility Model

Angola continues to recognise IP rights as an important contribution to a country’s social and economic development and in the last IP Bulletin issued (4/2023), published statistics related to the years 2020 to 2022.

Overall, 2022 was marked by an increase in the request for protection of several rights of Industrial Property, where the demand levels for trademarks and other distinctive signs of trade were 23% higher than those recorded in 2021.

Sanctions. The word we hear the most these days. The target is only one: Russia. Due to the unjustified invasion of Ukraine and all the devastation caused to the country and its people.

United States, Canada, the 27 European Union member states, the UK, Montenegro, Switzerland, Albania, Andorra, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Monaco, Norway, San Marino, North Macedonia, and also Japan, South Korea, Australia, Micronesia, New Zealand, Singapore, and Taiwan – what do all of these countries have in common?

On January 7, 2022, the Cape Verdean Parliament approved the accession of the country to the Lusaka Agreement, which also incorporates the accession to Banjul and Harare Protocols. On January 27, the parliament approved the accession to the Swakopmund Protocol. The Instruments of Accession will be deposited with the ARIPO Director General on a later date, yet to be defined.

Starting on 1st January 2022, applicants of the ARIPO system will be able to designate Seychelles in their patent and design applications. The President of Seychelles, Wavel Ramkalawan, signed the instrument of accession to the Harare Protocol on 26th August 2021.

Vítor Sérgio Moreira, Patent Engineer at Inventa International​, provide a case study on utility models in Angola, Brazil, Mozambique and Portugal.

On 30 July 2019, the Mauritius Parliament approved and passed the Industrial Property Bill 2019, it was then published in the Government Gazette on 10 August 2019. The bill aims to update and strengthen protection for IP rights, as well as to harmonize the current legislation in order to meet the challenges of the globalized industry.

The new Portuguese Industrial Property Code was published on December 10th last year. After six months have passed we reiterate some of the main changes.

Patents | Utility Models | Drawings or Models

The Authorities of Kenya have published, on April 10th 2018, The Statue Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Bill, 2018, a legislation for the amendments of several laws, in which the Industrial Property Act, 2001 (No. 3 of 2001), the Copyright Act, 2001 (No. 12 of 2001), the Anti-Counterfeit Act, 2008 (No. 13 of 2008) and the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions Act, 2016 (No. 33 of 2016) are included.

The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (henceforth, ARIPO) is a supranational organization in Africa, for the cooperation of among African states in all matters related to Intellectual Property, first established by the Lusaka Agreement in 1976. At the moment, this supranational organization is comprised of nineteen member-states and four treaties for different Intellectual Property rights:

Intellectual property rights play a crucial role in the marketing strategy of all kinds of an increasing number of companies, and it involves a set of processes, creations and communications offerings which have value for the clients, customers or society in general. Marketing necessarily generates intangible assets that may be protected by intellectual property rights. In fact, this is the first significative aspect of the influence of intellectual property rights on marketing strategies: the protection of intangible assets in a marketing campaign.