Alex Chan: October 2009 Archives

The USPTO has made a recent announcement that it has signed a Workplan for Bilateral Cooperation on intellectual property issues with the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO).  This workplan, in essence, represents USPTO's very first commitment to helping developed countries and least developed countries in promoting and improving the current existing intellectual property systems in some of the most needed African countries including, for example, Ghana, Botswana, Malawi, Kenya, Sudan, Uganda and Zimbabwe.

There has always been a critical need and demand for a legal framework in these African countries to enable private and public enterprises and companies to address the current food shortage and food crisis.  These needs and demands, however, are often overlooked because of, inter alia, the lack of regulatory structure by which private investment can be protected via IP rights (IPRs).  By signing the cooperative agreement with the USPTO, ARIPO seems to acknowledge the importance of knowledge sharing and technology transfer, and the life-saving effects of IPR protection on the current food production. 

Needless to say, the cooperative agreement is historic because the collaboration signifies Africa's willingness to build capacity programs and its understanding that private companies are less likely to invest in R&D and/or partner with public entities to create a business model that would benefit interest of the public in the absence of IPR protection.  The agreement further shows USPTO's continuous compliance in meeting the technical cooperation obligation under Article 67 of the TRIPS agreement.