Enforcement

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.

In many countries, a patent can only be registered if it is new, has an inventive step, and is industrially applicable. In addition to meeting these substantial requirements, you also must meet other formal requirements, including legal deadlines.

It turns out that in many jurisdictions there are types of patents with substantial lighter requirements, namely utility models.

One of the requirements in Angola for the registration of any IP right through a legal representative is a power of attorney on behalf of the applicant. In cases where the applicants are foreign persons or entities, this document is even mandatory, as they are required to be represented by a local attorney at law, according to article 67 of the Angolan Industrial Property Law (IP Law).

Additionally, for these applicants, it will be required that the power of attorney will be certified at an Angolan consulate or embassy.

The amendments introduced through The Statute Law (Miscellaneous Amendments) Act Number 18 of 2018, which come into effect in January 2019, have provided significant changes in intellectual property rights (IPRs), as this Act involves amendments in several laws of the Industrial Property Act (2001), the Copyright Act (2001), the Protection of Traditional Knowledge and Cultural Expressions Act (2016) and The Anti-Counterfeit Act (2018) (“the ACA Act”).

When CultureTree's tweet and hashtag #Yorubaisnotforsale went viral, it ignited an online debate about whether registering a trademark name for an ethnic group is cultural appropriation.

The Yoruba people – who live mainly in Benin, Nigeria and Togo – represent around 35 million people in Africa, making them one of the largest ethnic groups on the continent. Most are from Nigeria, where they represent up to 15.5% of the country’s population.

Introduction

By the end of 2019, humanity was confronted by a new infectious disease caused by a new coronavirus, the covid-19 that led, on March 11th, 2020 the Word Health Organization (WHO) to declare the state of a global pandemic.

In June 2021, the Casablanca Commercial Court invalidated the Moroccan businessman Mohamed Zehraoui’s claim to use the word “Habanos”, which belongs to the Cuban Habanos Corporation, on cigars manufactured in Morocco.

It all started in 2011 when the entrepreneur registered the company name Habanos SA in the Casablanca Commercial Register, taking advantage of the fact that the Cuban corporation of the same name had not registered the brand in Morocco.

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.

The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Industrial Property Law has been in force since 1982. Article 5 stipulates that there are three kinds of patent:

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.