Industrial Property

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.

There have been many changes in 2020 to procedures for registering industrial property rights in Angola, particularly with regard to trademark registration. The most significant revision is the change to the payment period for granting fees, which alters the entire procedure for registering trademarks in the country, along with the possibility of requesting a 60-day extension.

Zanzibar’s Business and Property Registration Agency (BPRA) recently introduced several changes to its practice, which are set to have an impact on the country’s IP landscape.

The most important amendment is arguably the introduction of an online registration system. It aims to accelerate application proceedings, although this may take a while to be fully effective as it will require automating all existing processes. Implementing a paperless office is a positive, environmentally friendly decision.

Angola is one of many countries that recognises IP rights as an important contribution to a country’s social and economic development. It is a member of WIPO and adopted the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property. Further, Law 3/92 (published in the Official Gazette (9) on 28 February 1992) was the first piece of specific IP legislation in the country.

The following registration process for a trademark in Angola is simple and similar to procedures in many other jurisdictions:

The Angolan Patent and Trademark Office has announced by Notification n.º 7/2020, the resumption of its activities from April 27.

This Notification follows the Presidential Decree No. 120/20, of April 24 which, despite extending the state of emergency, provides in its Article 14 the reopening of the Public Services and foresees some security measures.

On April 16, 2020, the counting of deadlines for the practice of acts by private individuals that had been suspended since the publication of Law no. 1-A/2020, which entered into force on March 12, 2020, as restarted.

During its short existence, the Cape Verde Institute of Management and Quality of Intellectual Property (IGQPI) has mainly focused on protecting trademarks and patents. Other IP rights – such as appellations of origin and geographical indications (GIs) – have therefore been ignored.

The first, and probably the most significate change, is that Zanzibar’s Business and Property Registration Agency (BPRA) has introduced the Online Registration System (ORS) that has already been put in place in Tanzania (Tanganyika) with very promising results.

There are multiple types of industrial property rights that an entity can use to protect the following distinctive signs in commerce in Mozambique: trademark, logotype, trade name, establishment name, establishment insignia and corporate name.

Distinctive signs and the law

This year, INTA’s Europe Conference “Brands, Sports, and Esports: A Brand (R)evolution” took place in Madrid, Spain.