Geographical Indications Bill Kenya

Business Daily reports that Kenya's Industrialization Ministry along with the Kenya Industrial Property Institute (KIPI) are currently reviewing the Geographical Indications Bill (GI) which will provide a legal framework for safeguarding products like tea, coffee, and handicraft by expressly attributing them a sign or appellation of origin.

A geographical indication is a sign used on goods that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities, reputation or characteristics that are essentially attributable to that place of origin. Most commonly, geographical indications include the name of the place of origin of the goods such as agricultural products which typically have qualities that derive from their place of growth/production and are also influenced by specific local factors, such as climate and soil. Geographical indications may be used for a wide variety of products, whether natural, agricultural or manufactured.

Meanwhile an appellation of origin is a special kind of geographical indication. It generally consists of a geographical name or a traditional designation used on products which have a specific quality or characteristics that are essentially due to the geographical environment in which they are produced.  The concept of a geographical indication encompasses appellations of origin.

Whether a sign is recognized as a geographical indication is a matter of national law and as such geographical indications are protected in accordance with international treaties and national laws under a wide range of concepts, including trademark laws in the form of collective marks or certification marks, laws against unfair competition, consumer protection laws, or specific laws or decrees that recognize individual GIs.

The GI Bill is expected to help certify Kenyan products and market them exclusively in the speciality market, a strategy that will help distinguish Kenyan goods from those of other countries.  The likely scenarios once the Bill is enacted include marketing of origin-specific Kenyan exports such as Kericho tea, Mt Kenya coffee, Maasai jewellery, and Kisii soapstone carvings.

The draft GI Bill also proposes that producers and regulatory firms can apply to be custodians of a location specific trademark. Thus, the Kenya Tea Development Agency may apply to register tea variety trademarks.  Certification trademark of Kenyan products will avoid situations where foreign parties attempt to register such goods in other countries.

GI's are protected at the international level through a number of treaties mostly administered by World Intellectual Property Organization WIPO which provides for the protection of geographical indications, most notably the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property of 1883, and the Lisbon Agreement for the Protection of Appellations of Origin and Their International Registration. In addition, Articles 22 to 24 of the WTO Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) deals with the international protection of geographical indications within the framework of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

Meanwhile Article 43 of the EAC Common Market Protocol has provisions on co-operation in Intellectual Property Rights of which geographical indications are included (Art 43.2(f)).

Innovation for Growth in Africa

...there are a number of areas where Africa must quickly focus its energy to improve its productivity and accelerate growth; agriculture, health, information technology and the arts. 

Access the full speech by Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Managing Director, World Bank here

India's National Innovation Council

There is much we can learn from India on innovation (viewed as the transformation of knowledge into goods and services for the marketplace).  Realising that innovation is the engine for the growth of prosperity and national competitiveness in the 21st century, the President of India declared 2010 as the ‘Decade of Innovation’. To take this agenda forward, the Office of Adviser to the PM on Public Information Infrastructure and Innovations (PIII) developed a national strategy on innovation with a focus on an Indian model of inclusive growth. The idea is to create an indigenous model of development suited to Indian needs and challenges.

Towards this end, the Prime Minister has approved the setting up of a National Innovation Council (NIC) under the Chairmanship of Mr. Sam Pitroda, Adviser to the PM on PIII to discuss, analyse and help implement strategies for inclusive innovation in India and prepare a Roadmap for Innovation 2010-2020. NIC would be the first step in creating a crosscutting system which will provide mutually reinforcing policies, recommendations and methodologies to implement and boost innovation performance in the country.

One of the outcomes of this process has been a proposal to set up 14 new “universities for innovation” that will aim at stimulating economic growth.  Africa can learn a lot from India’s experiences, especially in regard to the importance of bringing technical knowledge to bear on development through a new species of universities.  These universities will aim at doing for India in the 21st century what its institutes of technology did in the last century.  India is showing Africa that the secret of economic success is not a secret: it lays in re-inventing the university system.

Africa should therefore no longer be an enclave reserved for mineral and raw material extraction.  There is alot of potential in the African continent however the limiting factors include Africa’s low level of training in engineering sciences and the lack of venture capital to turn ideas of products for the marketplace. On education, a new generation of technology/innovation schools directly linked to the productive sector, will be an effective way to move to the frontiers of technological innovation.

Useful discussion on innovation in Africa can be accessed here.