Proposals to amend Rwanda’s intellectual property law

Proposals to amend Rwanda’s intellectual property law

Rwanda’s legislative committee is debating a draft IP legislation. The proposals include a variety of subjects.

Patents

Patent specifications

The proposal permits a provisional patent specification to be filed in order to obtain a filing date. Before completing the entire application, the patentee will have a period of time to finalize the specifics of the invention, as well as make improvements and amendments. This appears to be focused at assisting low-income inventors.

Pharmaceuticals are protected by patents

Until now, pharmaceuticals have been exempt from patent protection due to the flexibility provided to least developed countries under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights. Pharmaceuticals, on the other hand, are proposed to be included in the scope of patent protection, with exclusions established by the health minister.

Procedures for patent opposition

At the moment, trademark applications are the only applications that can be opposed. All IP rights, including patents, should have a provision for pre-grant objection. The reasoning is that in order to cancel rights, affected parties should not have to go through costly judicial proceedings.

Registrations for layout-design

Maintenance payments would be made five years from the first exploitation or filing, whichever comes first.

Copyright

Works of photography

For the time being, photographic works are unprotected. This is addressed in the proposed legislation.

Orphan works

The proposed law establishes a licensing system for orphan works that require the potential licensee to make reasonable attempts to find the owner.

Cultural expression and traditional knowledge

Traditional knowledge would be protected in a unique way, and cultural expression would be protected under copyright laws, according to the legislation.

Questions of general matters

Publication of intellectual property rights

The authorities believe that all IP rights should be made public in order for interested parties to intervene; to far, only trademark applications have been made public. The need to publish will not apply to inventions relating to national defense and security.

Penalties

Infringement of intellectual property rights will be punished more severely. Theft or fraudulent use of a formula or invention, for example, may result in a sentence of three to five years in jail, as well as heavy penalties.

IP administration should be centralized

The objective is to have a single entity, the Intellectual Property Office, oversee all IP rights and related matters. The administration is currently dispersed between several bodies.

The list of Rwanda IP Firms can be found here.

Rwanda IP office can be accessed here.