Africa-Press – Mauritius. A delegation from the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO) and the African Intellectual Property Rights & Innovation in Africa (AfriPI) met the Minister of Arts and Cultural Heritage, Mr Avinash Teeluck, this morning, in Port Louis.
This meeting with the Minister of Arts and Cultural Heritage was held in the context of a workshop on the promotion of the ARIPO Protocols which is being held in Mauritius from 31 May to 02 June 2023.
The ARIPO has adopted supplementary treaties to the Lusaka Agreement which are known as the Harare Protocol and the Banjul Protocol. These treaties enable ARIPO to grant and register industrial property rights on behalf of its Member States through a single filing system.
Three other treaties were adopted by ARIPO at a later stage, namely the Swakopmund Protocol, the Arusha Protocol, and the Kampala Protocol. Mauritius is a Member State of ARIPO since September 2020 following the deposit of its instruments of accession to the Lusaka Agreement.
For the country to benefit from the services offered by ARIPO and for it to be designated and earn revenue for the protection of Intellectual Property (IP) rights, it will have to accede to the ARIPO-administered treaties which are of interest to it.
Accession to such treaties will entail the need for the review of its legal IP framework to give effect to the provisions of the treaties it chooses to accede to. The African Regional Intellectual Property Organization
ARIPO is an intergovernmental organisation created in December 1976 under the Lusaka Agreement to pool together resources of its Member States for the promotion, development and, harmonisation of intellectual property laws and policies.
ARIPO has three main organs, namely, the Council of Ministers, the Administrative Council and the Secretariat. Its mandate is to develop, harmonise, and promote intellectual property in its Member States and Africa.
It is also the mandate of ARIPO to provide patent-based technological support services to users of patent information in Member States as well as to offer a platform for the exchange of ideas on IP-related matters.
In addition, in 2002, ARIPO’s mandate has been extended to cover copyright and related rights, the protection of genetic resources, traditional knowledge and folklore, so that it now covers the whole spectrum of IP rights.
Currently, the organisation comprises 22 Member States, namely: Botswana, Cape Verde, Kingdom of Eswatini, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Kingdom of Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia, Rwanda, Sao Tomé & Principe, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
For More News And Analysis About Mauritius Follow Africa-Press
