Intellectual property in Ethiopia
Intellectual property law deals with the rules for securing and enforcing legal rights to inventions, designs, and artistic works. … Patents give inventors the right to use their product in the marketplace or to profit by transferring that right to someone else.
There are four types of intellectual property rights (IP): patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets.
Patents are Used to protect inventive ideas or processes – things that are new, useful and non-obvious – patents are what most often come to mind when thinking of intellectual property protection. Patents are also used to protect newly engineered plant species or strains, as well
There are three types of patents, Utility (Function), Design (Aesthetic), and Plant patents.
Trademarks
Trademarks safeguard labels. The name of the product referring to the product or service is regarded as a trademark. A trade mark is something under trademark law from which consumers identify a product or a product’s source. Usually, it will be the words or name associated with the service or product. We refer to this as a wordmark if the brand or trademark is composed of words.
Copyrights
Copyrights do not protect ideas, instead, the way in which ideas (“original works of authorship”) are expressed, such as written works, art, music, architectural sketches, or even software programming code. Copyrights allow the owner of the protected materials, with some exceptions, to monitor the reproduction, performance, new versions or modifications, public performance, and distribution of the works.
Trade Secret
Trade secrets are proprietary methods, systems, devices, formulas, policies or other details that are confidential and unique to the business that uses them. These serve as competitive advantages for the company.
The primary aim of intellectual property law is to encourage the creation of a wide variety of intellectual output. To achieve this, the law gives people and businesses property rights to their intellectual creations, usually for a limited period of time. It allows people to profit from the information and intellectual goods they create. These economic incentives are expected to encourage innovation and contribute to the technological progress of countries.
Ethiopia is a member of the World Intellectual Property Organization. The Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office (EIPO) administers Intellectual Property Rights issues. The country has an established laws for the protection of intellectual property.
The intellectual property laws of Ethiopia are governed by various proclamations, regulations and directives. The Copyright and Neighboring Rights Protection proclamation no. 410/2004 were forced on July 19th 2004. The copyright proclamation was later amended by proclamation no. 872/2014. The implementing regulation was issued by the council of ministers under regulation no. 305/2014.
The patent law of Ethiopia is governed by proclamation no. 123/95 together with the council of ministers regulation no. 12/97. The patent laws regulate inventions, minor inventions, utility models and industrial design.
The trademark registration and proclamation no. 501/2006 together with the trademark registration and protection regulation no. 273/2012 are the major laws that are enforced to regulate trademark matters.
In Ethiopian law, in order to acquire rights granted by the patent title and be binding on third parties, the application must be filled to the Ethiopia Intellectual Property Office. These processes can be confusing and tedious, which is why our law office located in Addis Ababa is providing to notch guidance on securing intellectual property rights.
Alebel Ashagrie & Associates, and Ethiopian Law Office provides a comprehensive service for all types of intellectual property, covering patent and trademark protection, design registration, copyright and the licensing of technology. We advise clients not only on intellectual property protection but also on tax aspects.
