IP Rights as Catalyst for Economic Development

James Emejo writes that developing appropriate regulatory framework for the protection of intellectual property could spur innovation, incentivise foreign investors and stimulate economic prosperity

The overall concept and practice of Intellectual Property (IP) rights has continued to raise concerns among stakeholders in virtually all spheres of human endeavours in the country particularly business innovators and the increasing numbers of start-ups.

To an extent, stakeholders argue that Nigeria could be described as a country without a clear cut framework for IP- and their summation could go unchallenged given the present chaos in copyright and patent infringement in the country.

In a country where individual ideas and innovations in academics, literature and business are left unprotected and vulnerable to copyright and patent violations- and with no punitive instrument for deterrence, the consequences of such negligence could better be imagined.

Essentially, copyright and industrial property remain the two major classes of IP: while the former covers literary, musical and artistic creations, the latter takes care of rights in patents, trademarks, industrial designs, utility models, plants and animal varieties among others.

IP rights are particularly important in order to safeguard original works and ideas of people from theft, which could deny them the proper recognition and economic reward for their efforts.

It is further defined as “exclusive proprietary rights granted by law to the owners thereof, over intangible assets which are innovative products of the brain or the mind, as opposed to personal or real properties.”

In simple terms, the absence of a law to protect intellectual property rights could hurt the economy at large and scare foreign investors who wouldn’t want to jeopardise their business interests.

In the academic space, plagiarism is widespread and has become a norm in the country as some lecturers and students often copied literary works of others without proper attribution. And the laws have been weak to prevent a recurrence.

In the business landscape, especially technology, software are pirated or cracked at will in open violation of copyright. There are still a whole lot of storage devices with pirated contents being sold across the country with the attendant economic consequences to individuals, businesses and the country as a whole.

Worried by the development, and the need to create awareness about the dangers of absence of a framework for IP, a group of professionals and stakeholders including legal advocates launched a conversation for an appropriate framework to shield artistes, businesses among others from copyright and industrial rights infringement.

Speaking at the African Policy Conversation on Intellectual Property, a partner at the Firma Advisory, Chinenye Uwanaka, who is one of the dialogue conveners, echoed further concerns that the federal government appeared not to place a worth on creativity and innovation by young Nigerian entrepreneurs.

This is particularly worrisome in view of government’s policy direction to diversify the economy from oil to agriculture and digital economy- yet neglecting a crucial ingredient for success- IP protection.

Highlighting the negative implications of the development, Uwanaka, who leads a group of young intellectual professionals from various fields of endeavour, further expressed worry that the country as a whole does not regard intellectual property rights even though it remains critical for economic diversification.

According to her:”We now we have our fashion, our music, we have our movies being celebrated all over the world and that is what is actually bringing money into the economy. That is our biggest export right now but we don’t have the relevant policy to back that up and harness those sectors.

“We are going to work hand in hand with government to develop this policy and we are going to try and do things differently because people had tried and failed in the past but this time around, we are committed as a group.”

Uwanaka, who said most of the IP rights laws in the country were outdated hinted on plans by the group to produce a draft document at the end of the dialogue, which will also be presented to the Minister of Industry, Trade and Investment, Mr. Richard Adebayo on expectations from the business environment and creative industry in particular for adequate protection.

According to her, the creative industry, like the technology sector remains a multi-billion dollar industry which should not be ignored by government but should come up with appropriate legislation to support its growth.

“Even the FIRS had to come up with a framework for taxing intellectual property, that’s the way we can get revenue but obviously we are not saying go and tax them until the businesses fail.

“We are saying how do we incentivise these businesses to grow to employ more people, bring in foreign direct investment, to expand our economy- these are the ways we can diversify the economy by tapping into all these sectors and investing in them, she noted.

She also described the intervention by the group was a conscious effort to brainstorm on a legal framework for the IP policy in the country.

Also, Director, Programmes, Ventures Platform, Ms. Adaeze Sokan who was one of the panelists on the IP dialogue, decried the weak legal framework which currently exists adding that nobody would be encouraged to come up with new ideas if there are no laws to provide safeguards.

“I am not encouraged to come up with new ideas and I am not sure it won’t be stolen and I don’t have anybody to have my back or protect me.

So, the weak legal infrastructure that we have is limiting innovation that could come out of IP. Secondly, people don’t understand if IP even in the economy. So there’s an economics of ensuring that we do protect IP. It’s very important that we do that,” she told the audience.

Among other things, she also identified So, funding constraints which affects the individuals who want to protect their ideas.

She said:”We spend a lot of time talking about creating business plans or coming up with marketing plans but we don’t talk about coming up with IP strategy and it’s because again, for the lack of awareness; nobody understands its importance unless something crazy really happens and you don’t have backing.”

She said: “The key factor is that we are in a hurry to go and launch our products in the market and we don’t take the time to actually document the ideas that we’ve come up with.

“And where there’s non-disclosure agreements or patent or trademarks, we do need legal counsel burner also need funding structure so others don’t take advantage of that because there’s no standardised pricing for acquiring IP.”

Also, speaking on the discussion panel, a representative from Oracle, Mr. Adepegba Oduntan, argued that the country must respect IP rights of other people as a way forward.

According to him: “I think you celebrate what you value and in Nigeria we don’t seem to value intellectual property so long as you continue to use it and to cheat on other people’s IP the less likely you are going to invest in your own after all, you stole the other person’s own so there’s no reason you will imagine somebody else is not going to steal your own.”

He said: “So, if we want to do intellectual property, we are first to respect the IP rights of other people in the same way we protect land rights.

“Secondly, the government needs to be very specific about two things: we need to start to invest aggressively invest in Nigerian companies that are building IP and we need to protect the market in which they operate which is our domestic market because you can only grow big locally before you can grow big externally.”

Furthermore, the Managing Director/Chief Executive, Infographics Limited, Mr. Chinenye Mba-Uzoukwu told the participants that, “It’s true we have a problem with the enforcement in IP here.”

He said: “One thing technology companies can do is proper sensitisation to the end users: let them understand the implications of using technology from the black market. It exposes you and you have a lot of danger. It’s a whole lot of cyber security threat for the user.

So I will say proper sensitisation is one of the things that can be done here.”

Meanwhile, in their article titled, “Strengthening Intellectual Property Rights and Protection In Nigeria”, Femi Olubanwo and Oluwatoba Oguntuase had also concluded among other things, recommended a holistic reform of the country’s IP sector to align with the diversification objective of the federal government.

They noted that concrete efforts at developing the Nigeria’s indigenous IP regime began to materialise shortly after the country attained independence in the early 1960s but had remained a work-in- progress till date.

So, the weak legal infrastructure that we have is limiting innovation that could come out of IP. Secondly, people don’t understand if IP even in the economy. So there’s an economics of ensuring that we do protect IP