Industrial Design

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.

Inventa offers a compilation of articles, authored by our team, on some relevant topics that marked the field of innovation, trademarks, patents and IP rights, mainly in Africa, Europe and Asia.

The year 2021 has been in the spotlight since the previous year. With expectation, in almost every part of the planet, it was a year to strengthen ambitions and achieve objectives, as we all try to adjust to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The design of a product can be protected by an intellectual property right through a registration before an intellectual property office. In this article, it will be compared the design systems of China and European Union.

In general terms, the scope of protection of a design encompasses the appearance of the whole or a part of a product resulting from the features of, in particular, the lines, contours, colors, shape, pattern, texture and/or materials of the product itself and/or its ornamentation.

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.

Intellectual property

In relation to the 50th anniversary of Inventa International, we have been given the challenge to analyze certain intellectual property data over the past 50 years on the African continent.

As it is impossible to cover a panoramic view of the various events, we chose just a few topics we found interesting for this minor-scale study. At the outset, it seems important for us to outline a short introduction about the African continent and the protection of industrial property in the countries of which it is made up.

The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) came into effect on January 1, 2021 and is the largest trade area in the world by number of participating countries since the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The objectives outlined in article 3 of the treaty include the establishment of a common market for products and services, a regional customs authority, enhancing the competitiveness of member states’ economies both in Africa and globally, and promoting industrial development.

The African Regional Intellectual Property Organisation (ARIPO) encompasses two major regional protocols: the Banjul Protocol for the protection of trademarks and the Harare Protocol for the protection of designs and patents.

Signatories to the Banjul Protocol are Botswana, Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Every year, since the year 2000, World Intellectual Property Day is celebrated on April 26. Every year, the World Intellectual Property Organization chooses a theme for this celebration. In 2021, the chosen theme was the importance of intellectual property (IP) for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), when they bring their ideas to the market.

In Portugal, in the year 2020, the Portuguese IP Office (INPI) received 20.105 national Trademark applications, representing an increase of 1,9% when compared to 2019.

Concerning national patents, 391 applications were filed, which generated an increase of 72,2%, the highest in the last 10 years.

On the other hand, national Design applications stood at 257 cases, decreasing 4,1% when compared to the previous year.