Copyright and Related Rights

The African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement (AfCFTA) was signed on March 21, 2018, at Kigali, Rwanda, where 44 out of 55 African Union member states appended their assent to a landmark treaty.

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The Inventa IP Review magazine highlights some of the IP news of the previous year, written by our team, through opinion articles, interviews or press releases. We cover relevant topics that have marked the field of innovation, trademarks, patents or intellectual property rights, mainly in Europe, Africa and Asia.

The 2022 edition shares useful information on the protection of trademarks in different jurisdictions, the entry into the Unitary Patent system and also the impact that may arise from the Russian-Ukrainian conflict in the IP field.

Is it possible to draw a line between IP rights and other fundamental rights? It depends.

Published on IP STARS (Managing IP), Vera Albino summarizes four decisions of 2022 in which European courts had to consider the relationship between copyright and the right to respect for private life, the right to information or even freedom of expression, guaranteed by European law.

In some cases, as we can see, it is necessary to strike a relatively fair balance between them.

On November 29, the Parliament of East Timor approved the country's first Code of Copyright and Related Rights, intended to protect the creation, production and commercialization of literary, scientific and artistic works and their respective authors.

This law, which will come into force 180 days after its publication, proves to be an essential regulatory basis for the recognition of national innovation and culture, rewarding its authors and thus stimulating the creation of new intellectual assets in the most diverse areas of expression.

There is a grey area of protection for works of applied art, either by copyright or by design, both intellectual property rights which have different criteria of protection.

Following the approved accession of Cape Verde to the Lusaka Agreement (ARIPO), the country now joins four key WIPO treaties: Madrid Protocol, Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT), Geneva Act of the Lisbon Agreement and Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.

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.

Changes in São Tomé and Príncipe's trademark regime – including a detailed opposition process - came into force in 2017. Below are the key points of the system, including all the major deadlines.

Refusal grounds

A trademark may be refused in opposition proceedings on the following grounds:

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic which effectively put much of life on hold, Nigeria enjoyed an extremely productive 2020 with respect to copyright law reforms and court decisions.