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The intersection of intellectual property (IP) and genomics is reshaping the landscape of healthcare, biotechnology, and business in Nigeria. Genomics—the study of an organism’s entire genetic material—has profound implications for medical research, personalised medicine, agriculture, and pharmaceutical innovations. However, ensuring equitable benefits and commercial viability requires a robust IP framework.

Intellectual property rights cover exclusive rights originating from the mental labour of their creators or inventors and include copyright, trademarks, industrial designs, patents, geographical indications, and plant variety rights.

IP rights may be the subject of a licence, where the proprietor of an IP right (the licensor) while maintaining the ownership, authorises a third person (the licensee) to use and exploit the IP right during trade, under the terms and conditions set out by both parties.

Since the dawn of the industrial revolution, the use of patents has been one of the valuable tools used for the protection of inventions, particularly inventions that are considered to have commercial value and appeal.

Owning a patent gives you a valuable property right, it allows an inventor to commercially make, use, and sell inventions for a specified period.

Understanding trade secrets is fundamental to protect IP but it is also essential to innovation on a global scale. Despite countless litigations, many countries, like South Africa, still lack specific laws related to trade secrets. This begs the question, does the common law offer enough protection?

With the end of the transition period, on December 31, 2020, it is important to review the actual changes concerning Industrial Property assets filed in the European Union.

We have elaborated briefly some relevant points:
 

Registrations granted until 31.12.2020

Ended the initial phase of the registration process of the industrial property assets, that is to say, the filing of the applications in I.A.P.I. (Angolan Institute of Industrial Property) and subsequent phases (bulletin publication, opposition period, formal and substantial examination, granting fees payment and granting of the rights), holders shall be aware of the necessity to proceed with the payment of the maintenance fees of their rights.

Introduction

The blockchain technology gained global notoriety when, at the end of 2017, the value of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin reached the value of $ 20,000. It is usually accepted that this technology arose in 2008 and was created by Satoshi Nakamoto, the fictitious name of a person or a group of people, being implemented in 2009 as a nuclear component of Bitcoin.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) recently shared statistical data in regards to the companies that invested more in the protection of IP assets, during 2016, namely trademarks, PCTs, designs and domain name disputes. IP assets filing services experienced increases in the number of applications.

The South African National Treasury announced, on 22 February 2017, the intention to eliminate the current regimen’s restriction to the Intellectual Property assets’ transaction, by liberalizing the transactions in this area. These are good news for entrepreneurs and investors.

ARM Holdings, a Cambridge-based internet technology company that designs chips and holds the title as the UK’s only global-scale tech company and is also listed in the FTSE 100 has accepted a takeover offer by the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank for $31.4 billion.