Zimbabwe to Host 21 Member States of the ARIPO Governing Bodies at the Elephant Hills Resort, in Victoria Falls

The Government of the Republic of Zimbabwe will host the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization's (ARIPO) 45th Session of the Administrative Council and the 18th Session of the Council of Ministers comprised of 21 Member States from the 6 to 10 December 2021 at the Elephant Hills Resort, Victoria Falls.

ARIPO's governance structure comprises: the Council of Ministers, Administrative Council, Board of Appeal and the Secretariat. The Ministers of Governments responsible for administering intellectual property laws in the ARIPO Member States constitute the Council of Ministers, which is the supreme organ of the Organization responsible for

policy issues. The Administrative Council which is responsible for, inter alia, supervising the execution of the Organization's policies and approving the Strategic Plan and the supporting programmes of activity, is composed of Heads of offices responsible for industrial property and copyright in the Member States. The Administrative

Council is subordinate to the Council of Ministers. The Board of Appeal is independent of the other organs of the Organization and is mandated to preside over appeals against decisions of the ARIPO Office regarding the granting of IP rights. The Secretariat is responsible for implementing the Strategic Plan and the programmes of activity of the Organization.

The Republic of Zimbabwe is expected to take over for both Chair of the Council of Ministers represented by the Minister of Justice, Legal and Parliamentary Affairs, and the Chair of the Administrative Council will be the Chief Registrar of the Companies and Intellectual Property Office. The Chairpersons will serve for one term of two years. The Republic of Liberia is the current and outgoing Chair for the two bodies.

The History of ARIPO Origins

The origins of ARIPO can be traced back to a regional seminar held in Nairobi, Kenya, in the early 1970s to discuss patents and copyright issues for English-speaking African countries that had just become independent.

These countries requested the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for assistance to establish a collective system that would enable them to pool resources and avoid duplication of human and önancial resources for industrial property matters and technological advancement.

The two UN agencies organized several meetings in 1974, attended by representatives of most English-speaking African countries. This resulted in the drafting of an Agreement to create an Industrial Property Organization for English Speaking Africa (ESARIPO), also known as the Lusaka Agreement. The historic Lusaka Agreement was approved by a Diplomatic Conference held at Mulungushi Hall in Lusaka, Zambia, in 1976, attended by 13 Englishspeaking African countries. Eight countries signed the agreement at the conference. Subsequently, öve countries, namely, The Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, and Zambia, ratiöed the Lusaka Agreement becoming the örst öve

members of the Organization when the agreement entered into force on 15 February 1978.

Situation Before ESARIPO

Before ESARIPO, most independent African countries had "dependent industrial property legislation," which did not provide for original grant or registration in the countries concerned. They could only extend to their territories the effects of industrial property rights obtained in and governed by the laws of the United Kingdom – a foreign country.

The Seat of ARIPO

ESARIPO started with no permanent secretariat of its own and relied on the goodwill of its original patrons. Therefore, the Member States of ESARIPO decided to place the Organization's Interim Secretariat under the joint stewardship of the UNECA and WIPO in Nairobi, Kenya. At its First Session held in Nairobi from 2 to 5 May 1978, the Administrative Council established a permanent Secretariat. It was thus initially established at Sheria House, Nairobi, at the invitation of the Government of Kenya. However, as with many new organizations, the early stages were beset with önancial and logistical challenges. Against this backdrop, the Government of the newly independent Republic of Zimbabwe in 1982 offered to take the responsibility to host the Secretariat, with the Organization being accorded diplomatic status and other beneöts, including free office accommodation for the örst öve years or until ESARIPO could establish its own offices.

The örst Director General, Jeremiah Ntabgoba, who took his post in June 1981 began establishing the permanent

Secretariat in February 1982 in Harare, initially at Electra House along Samora Machel Avenue, where it shared offices with the Zimbabwe Intellectual Property Office (ZIPO).

As the Secretariat expanded to accommodate the Patent Documentation and Information Centre (ESPADIC), the

Zimbabwe Government provided more spacious accommodation to the embryonic Organization at Bryanston House in George Silundika Avenue.

The commencement of the Harare Protocol in 1982 saw the work of the Organization and its staff growing,

warranting the need for additional space. The host Government offered the Secretariat a Government-owned property in Fourth Street (now Simon Muzenda Street), the Old Stable House. From this location, ARIPO önally moved to its current premises at 11 Natal Road in Belgravia, Harare, where many other diplomatic missions and international organizations are located. Since then, the Secretariat's headquarters building has been extended twice, signifying positive growth and progression of the Organization, which the original benefactors of the

Organization (WIPO, UNECA and the government of Kenya) should indeed be proud of.

As the Organization embraced a Pan-Africanist outlook, the Lusaka Agreement was amended in 1985 to open membership to all African countries members of the then Organization of African Unity (OAU), now the African

Union, or members of UNECA. Thus, the "English Speaking" part of the name was dropped by the amendment to the Lusaka Agreement in 1985, leaving the African Regional Industrial Property Organization.

Later, on acquiring a mandate beyond industrial property for copyright and related rights, the name was again updated to the African Regional Intellectual Property Organization (ARIPO), thus embracing the entire spectrum of intellectual property.

With the host Government support and the other Member States guidance, and direction from the Council of Ministers and the Administrative Council, a örm foundation for the Organization was established upon which signiöcant successes have been achieved. From the initial eight signatories, there are 21 African countries that are now members of ARIPO.

Zimbabwe continues to be proud to host ARIPO. The inauguration of the extension of the headquarters building is a clear manifestation of everlasting stay and future rooted in the country.

ARIPO mandate and initiatives on the promotion of innovation in Africa

For the last four decades, ARIPO has strengthened Africa's intellectual property (IP) system. The Lusaka Agreement effectively called on all ARIPO Member States to pool together their resources to develop an effective IP system that would support the region's economic, social, scientiöc, technological and industrial development. ARIPO plays a central role in this process by facilitating cooperation among its 21 Member States.

ARIPO currently administers four protocols namely the Harare Protocol on patents and industrial designs, the

Banjul Protocol on Marks, the Arusha Protocol for the protection of new varieties of plants, and the Swakopmund Protocol on the protection of traditional knowledge and expression of folklore. In August 2021, The Kampala Protocol on Voluntary Registration of Copyright & Related Rights was adopted by the ARIPO Council of Ministers and was signed by nine ARIPO Member States on 28 August 2021 namely Ghana, Liberia, Malawi, Mozambique, Sao Tome and Principe, Sierra Leone, Sudan, United Republic of Tanzania, and Uganda. The Protocol shall come into force three months after öve States have deposited their instruments of ratiöcation or accession. ARIPO also has the mandate to coordinate initiatives regarding geographical indications.

ARIPO Member States span an area of 7 million square kilometres, with a combined population of 230 million

people and a GDP of USD 368 billion. Keyamong the objectives outlined in the Lusaka Agreement is ARIPO's role in assisting "its members, as appropriate, in the acquisition and development of technology relating to intellectual property matters."

The Organization's founding fathers recognized that although innovation and creativity thrive across the continent, low uptake and use of the IP system meant that Africans were not fully leveraging the potential value of their ingenuity. More than four decades later, the number of applications for IP rights öled with ARIPO remains low. From 1984 – when the Harare Protocol for the protection of patents, utility models and industrial designs took effect – up to October 2021, ARIPO received 13547 patent applications. Just 2.6 percent of those applications originated from ARIPO Member States, with 7.4 percent from the rest of Africa. Nearly 90 percent of the patent applications received by ARIPO in that period originated from countries outside of Africa. A similar pattern exists with respect to industrial designs. In the same period, ARIPO received 1582 industrial design applications. ARIPO

Member States accounted for 19.8 percent of those applications, 17.2 percent came from other African countries and 63.2 percent came from applicants from the rest of the world. Applications for utility models are the only exception to this trend. In the period from 2000 to October 2021, of the 198 applications for utility models received,

77.8 percent were öled by applicants from ARIPO Member States; 7.1 percent of applications came from other African countries and the remaining 15.1 percent from applicants beyond Africa. However, it is worth noting that

Zimbabwe continues to lead with the highest number of utility models applications, having öled 126 (63%) applications followed by Kenya - 17 (8.2%), South Africa - 12 (7.2%), United Arab Emirates - 6 (3%), and Uganda/United States of America - 4 (2%) each.

For trademark applications, since 1997 – when the Banjul Protocol became operational – up to October 2021, applicants öled 4762 trademark applications with ARIPO; 37.5 percent came from ARIPO Member States; 8.1 percent from other African countries and the remaining 54.3 percent applicants from outside the continent.

The low uptake of IP rights by African innovators and the disproportionate number of IP applications öled by nonARIPO residents suggest that the regional system is not fully aligned with national development policies. It also indicates that there is still some way to raise awareness among users of the IP system about the potential social and

economic advantages that can øow from the strategic use of IP rights.

Initiatives to improve the uptake of the IP system in Africa

Recognizing the need to build broader recognition of IP's role in Africa's development and to address the gap in IP skills, in 2006, ARIPO established an IP Academy. As the focal point for training at ARIPO, the Academy is responsible, on the one hand, for developing and delivering training programs to enhance general understanding of IP and, on the other hand, to offer more specialized programs for IP professionals. Between 1992 and 2019, ARIPO organized 112 training programs for over 7,100 participants from the public and private sectors.

The Masters in Intellectual Property program offered jointly by ARIPO and its partners at Africa University, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and University of Dar es Salaam has trained 415 graduates since 2008.

Finally, ARIPO is working to improve public recognition of the critical contributions that creators and innovators make to our lives – thereby promoting greater uptake and use of IP across the continent – through various awards

and prizes. The Organization serves on jury panels to identify outstanding inventions and confers prizes for best inventors at exhibitions of inventions organized by the patent offices in various Member States. ARIPO also continues to promote innovation within the region through its active participation in trade and innovation fairs.

Improving IP uptake in the ARIPO Member States

The aforementioned initiatives are already translating into greater general awareness of how use of the IP system can foster innovation, business growth and economic development in the region. ARIPO has come a long way in creating the conditions to enable greater uptake and use of the IP system in the region. However, there is still some way to go until this translates into higher numbers of IP applications öled by residents of ARIPO Member States.