Friday 30 August 2013

Caroline B Ncube

IP policies in Africa - no. 2 Angola

Continuing with the African IP Policy series, this week we visit Angola to  find out if it has an IP policy; if so, to review it; and if not, to determine if there are any plans to draft one.

Angola does not have an IP policy ( see the country's WIPOLex entry here). IP has been considered in the context of other national policies, albeit briefly. The Angolan government launched a Science, Technology and Innovation (STI) framework in 2011, which consists of  a National Policy for STI (NPSTI), a National Strategy for STI (NSSTI) and a Coordinating Mechanism of the National System of STI (CMNSSTI)The NPSTI briefly refers to IP but does not articulate an IP policy. 
  
This Leo was unable to find any information on the preparation of an IP policy. However, according to the WIPO Technical Assistance Database, Angola was a participant in the  African Conference on the Strategic Importance of IP Policies to foster Innovation, Value Creation and Competitiveness and the ECOSOC Regional Preparatory Meeting held in Tanzania in March 2013 (see conference program here  and Kingsley's comments on these events here). Perhaps such participation is indicative if the country's intention to draft an IP policy in the future? 
Read More
Darren Olivier

Fridaylite and some bobs

TGIF is an expression of celebration for the weekend, except if it happens to be month end Friday, like today, and you are an attorney or related to one. This video is for all those readers who make a living out of billing their time for rendering services involving IP. Credits - Blain de Villiers for sending it to me and the band itself, all apparently practicing lawyers in Texas.

Late last week former Deputy President of the Supreme Court of Appeal and subscriber to the Afro-IP - Louis Harms - sent Afro Leo an article he had published this month summarizing his thoughts on the changes to the Exchange Control regulations following his own judgement in Oilwell. Fascinating stuff-  look out for a post on this in the next few days.

This weekend Afro Leo is getting a unique insight of the Zulu culture when he attends the Umhlanga ceremony as a guest of King Goodwill Zwelithini, the reigning King of the Zulus. The ceremony is used as platform to educate and inform thousands of people and is a powerful symbol of one of Africa's most feared and famous tribes.

And, for those interested in spare parts or BMWs look out for the Supreme Court of Appeal decision sometime soon. The appeal hearing took place on Monday in Bloem. For background reading click here.
Read More

Thursday 29 August 2013

Darren Olivier

Peter Fahrenheim

Afro Leo is sad to relay the news of the passing of Peter Fahrenheim who was a major figure on the IP landscape in South Africa for many years. A remembrance gathering was held recently at the Wanderers Club in Sandton, that filled the room. The 82 year old was last year's World Masters squash champion and was extremely passionate about IP. For most of his career he was the backbone of John & Kernick, one of the country's leading IP firms and responsible for many of the country's high profile patent matters when he was in charge. He also left a mark and mentored many of the country's current leading practitioners, a large number of whom attended the gathering. His own passion for IP was evident by the wave of consoling letters received by the family from around the world, and from the fact that Peter was said to be in contact with clients and working just last week. He was described as a unique man, a man of integrity, a family man, someone who only gave his clients his very best, and someone who always stood up for the underdog.
Read More
Jeremy

Mozambique signs up for Berne at last!


While on the subject of international treaty commitments, Afro Leo is pleased to learn from a recent WIPO media release that the Republic of Mozambique has at last deposited its instrument of accession to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, as amended to 28 September 1979. Mozambique becomes a Berne country on 22 November 2013.
Read More
Jeremy

Senegal to leave London Act but supports more current international design protection

The World Intellectual Property Organization's media release The Hague Notification No. 117: Hague Agreement Concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs; London Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs: Acceptance of termination by the Republic of Senegal reports that
"The Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) presents his compliments to the Minister for Foreign Affairs and has the honor to notify that the Government of the Republic of Senegal deposited, on August 21, 2013, an instrument of acceptance of the termination of the London Act of the Hague Agreement Concerning the International Deposit of Industrial Designs of November 6, 1925, as revised at London on June 2, 1934.
A separate notification will be made on the coming into effect of the termination when the required number of acceptances is reached".
This is not a diminution of Senegal's commitment to international design protection, though: the Republic acceded to the very much more current Hague Act, Geneva Protocol and Complementary Act of Stockholm as long ago as 1984.
Read More

Wednesday 28 August 2013

Jeremy

Vienetta vendetta ends in triumph for opponent

From the most recent email circular of NJQ & Associates comes news of a recent trade mark opposition from Morocco. In essence, on 23 March 2012 a local company called Biljar El Houssine applied to register as a trade mark the word mark VIENETTA SECRET for goods in Class 25. The application was speedily published for opposition on 12 April 2012. During the two-month window for the filing of oppositions, Turkish manufacturer Suleyman Giyim Sanayi Ve Ticaret Limited filed an opposition on the following grounds:
• the applied-for mark was similar to the opponent's VIENETTA SECRET mark, which had been registered in Morocco for goods in Classes 24, 25, and 35 since March 2011;

• the mark VIENETTA SECRET had been registered in the opponent's country of origin (i.e. Turkey) since 2006 and

• the applied-for mark was an exact replica of the opponent's trade mark in terms of pronunciation, spelling and general appearance.
After full litigation, including the consideration of the facts mentioned above, the trade mark Registrar issued his decision to uphold the opposition and refuse registration.

NJQ & Associates represented the successful opponent in these proceedings.
Read More

Tuesday 27 August 2013

AfroTwiga

Creative Commons Global Summit Finale

The Creative Commons Global Summit 2013 concluded on Saturday, with a full day (literally – not even a break for lunch!) of talks on a wide variety of subjects. Favorite subjects seem to be CC as applied in the real world – in the creative industries, in open government, and in open educational resources (OER).
 
With CC Summit concluded, it's time to celebrate!
Van Der Helst,
Celebration of the Peace of Münster, 1648
Also notable were discussions about copyright reforms and copyright developments around the world. One speaker provided a fascinating review of 22 Arab countries and their varied approaches to copyright exceptions. For example, most Arab countries provide some form of compulsory license to translate documents into Arabic (i.e., with or without the consent of the author). Some of the countries extend this to anybody with a desire to do the translation, whereas other countries restrict the license to specific translators (e.g., libraries or government) or to specific documents.

CC licensing activities by a group of Egyptian short film makers provided a welcome indication that, despite (or in some cases because of?) the turmoil in that country, creative industries continue to create.

Finally, closing remarks by the CC Argentina affiliate gave a good indication just how much work went into preparation for such a substantial and successful Global Summit. There has been talk of hosting a future Global Summit in Africa, which would certainly be welcome, but this blogger’s head spins at the thought of organizing visas and other travel documents for 200 attendees from every continent!

Immediately after the formal ending of the conference, African delegates took the opportunity to gather and discuss CC’s activities on the Continent. In attendance were delegates from (in no particular order) Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, South Africa, Nigeria, and Ghana.  Although this blogger was forced to leave early so as not to miss his departing flight, the discussion was lively and informative. With the addition of CC Kenya this year, and with CC Ghana seemingly just around the corner, the footprint of CC in Africa is rapidly and deservedly growing.


And so, a final thought. This CC Global Summit was, reportedly, the best attended Summit to date in terms of number of Affiliates. Indeed the diversity of attendees was quite impressive. In this age of ever-expanding copyright protection, it is comforting to have seen the varied and tireless efforts by CC and CC affiliates to push for open content.
Read More

Friday 23 August 2013

AfroTwiga

Thus Spoke the Creative Commons Board of Directors

It's Day 2 of the Creative Commons Global Summit 2013 in Buenos Aires. This Leo has chillingly discovered that Buenos Aires is farther south than Cape Town, and the weather (4° today!) reflects the latitude.

Today started with a panel discussion by 6 of the members of the CC Board of Directors.
The CC Board doesn't wear black suits.
Henri Gervex, 1890,
"The Board of Directors of La Republique Francaise"


A notable remark was made by Lawrence Lessig, co-founder of CC and presenter extraordinaire. He commented that CC is partly political by nature, but that it is not in CC’s best interest to have a “creed” or “mantra” that is “recited every week as is done in many churches.” His [reasonable] reasoning is that CC’s strength lies in the difficulty to say what CC actually is and stands for. CC includes activists, liberals, conservatives, radicals, and people from every continent, so there are a huge variety of views expressed by CC supporters. This makes it difficult for opponents to target CC and discredit CC’s activities. [This also makes maintaining the CC community much like an exercise in herding cats, or leos.]

Lessig continued later on to say that his whole life now is figuring out how CC prevents itself from being captured by it’s funders. The political system in the US [as in most many other countries] has been captured by donors, and is thus unable to serve the people it is supposed to serve.

Paul Brest, the Board Chair (and former Dean of the Stanford Law School) addressed a question about micropayments. An audience member [a Kenyan, notes this Leo with pride] asked the Board for their opinion on requesting every CC user to donate USD1 ($1), which would possibly raise many millions of dollars in a year. Paul Brest responded that it’s a good idea but asked two questions in response: how many audience members have visited the CC website in the last week, and how many have visited Wikipedia in the last day. The answer should be self evident, and he suggested that it indicates why micropayments probably won’t work well in practice.

Audience members didn’t drop the issue, and pushed the Board to redouble their efforts in making micropayments a significant revenue source. Cathy Casserly, the CC CEO [so many C's!], remarked that they have tried and it simply has not worked. But the Board agreed that efforts should continue. This blogger agrees that Wikipedia (which generates much/most of their revenue from a 1-month-per-year fundraising effort targeted at users) is far more “visible” to it’s users, and that CC’s activities and functionality is less amendable to micropayments.

Lessig pointed out a fascinating conflict that has so far largely prevented CC and Facebook from collaborating.  CC’s position is “permanent and free availability of CC-licensed content.” But Facebook is legally required to tell users that they can, if desired, permanently delete their Facebook account and uploaded content [really? this blogger thought that it was impossible to permanently delete a Facebook account.]. So if Facebook starts allowing users to license content under CC, there is a conflict with their legal requirements.

Michael Carroll (another CC co-founder) concluded the panel with a discussion of CC’s role in advocating for copyright law reform. CC is active in pushing for a more open copyright law, but he stated that, even with a “perfect” copyright law, CC would still be necessary. This blogger doesn’t understand why that’s even a question, since any copyright law would grant right(s), and the ability to license such rights follows automatically. CC would be unnecessary only if copyright law didn’t exist at all.


This blogger has one suggestion for the CC Board, and it is hoped that the suggestion is taken not as criticism but as encouragement. CC has become truly global (the Summit demonstrates this – Affiliate groups are on every continent and are numerous), but the Board has remained almost entirely White. This blogger would like to see the Board diversify and reflect the wide variety of users and supporters of CC.
Read More
Darren Olivier

Zimbabwe and Kenya tip the polls

Afro-IP's effort to "Help Francis" decide where to place his external offices in two mysteriously unnamed African countries, ended a few days ago. The results, reflecting the views of 147 voters, could not be closer:

Nigeria
  21 (14%)
 
Egypt
  1 (0%)
South Africa
  38 (25%)
 
Kenya
  39 (26%)
 
Zimbabwe
  43 (29%)
 
Angola
  3 (2%)
 
Botswana
  3 (2%)
 
Malawi
  2 (1%)
 
Tanzania
  3 (2%)
 
Cameroon
  4 (2%)
 
Ghana
  6 (4%)
 
Morocco
  4 (2%)
 
Tunisia
  2 (1%)
 
DRC
  1 (0%)
Zambia
  1 (0%)
Mauritius
  4 (2%)
 
Other
  9 (6%)
 

Votes so far: 147
Poll closed

Zimbabwe is of course the country that hosts the ARIPO office which would be useful to WIPO (and to ARIPO). Kenya, is a major player in the East Africa region and appears to have a supportive government. However, leaving out contenders like South Africa (the economic powerhouse on the continent), Nigeria (the most talked about African hotspot) or one of the OAPI countries (the successful French based African IP system) is going to be very difficult indeed. 

Read More
Caroline B Ncube

New A-Z series: IP policies in Africa - no. 1 Algeria

Following the recent reports on the imminent release of South Africa's IP policy for public comment (here and here), this Leo decided to follow Kingsley's lead and start a new A-Z series on IP policies on the continent (see here and here for a recap of Kingsley's A-Z series on the online presence of IP offices). 

The purpose of this new A-Z series is to:
1. determine if a country has an IP policy in place;
2. if there is a policy in place, to review the policy; and
3. if there is no policy, to establish if there is any publicly available information on the preparation of such a policy.


The series begins this week with a visit to Algeria:
Algeria does not have an IP policy. The WIPO Lex page on Algeria does not list an IP policy nor is one available on the National Office of Copyrights and Related Rights’ (ONDA) website and the Algerian National Institute of Industrial Property (INAPI) website

The country is in the process of formulating an IP policy and is receiving technical assistance from WIPO under Development Agenda Project DA_10_05: Development of National IP Strategies. See here for WIPO's approach to the formulation of IP policies. The IP for Development Program's technical assistance database lists meetings held in 2011 and  2012 on the formulation of an IP policy for Algeria. Further details of  how the policy formulation process has unfolded in Algeria are not publicly available nor has draft policy been made available online. 


This tour raises the important question of whether an IP policy is a 'must' or 'nice to have'. Should African countries have IP policies? If they should, what would a good IP policy look like or what would it seek to achieve? What do Afro-IP readers think about these issues? Please share your thoughts by commenting on this post. 
Read More

Thursday 22 August 2013

AfroTwiga

Data and Databases under Creative Commons 4.0 License

As Creative Commons (CC) gets ready to release their version 4.0 licenses (see earlier post here), the question arises: how do the new CC licenses address the sui generis database rights?  This was a subject of several sessions in the current CC Global Summit 2013 in Buenos Aires.
"Have you heard? We can soon be licensed under CC 4.0!"
(Guercino, 1637, Allegory of Painting and Sculpture)


Databases and data present interesting IP challenges.  Some countries offer copyright protection, and others (particularly Europe) provide a sui generis protection.

Databases cover an enormous variety of situations, and the first question that might be asked is “what is a database?” For example, a speaker at the Summit informs us that Wikimedia considers and treats Wikipedia as a non-database (i.e., they openly and explicitly state that they do not consider Wikipedia a database). Yet it’s an organized collection of data, and all of the data in Wikipedia is clearly stored in a database, so is it a database despite the clear and contrary statements of the owner?

In any case, Wikimedia uses the CC0 (Creative Commons Zero) license, which tells the world that they reserve no rights (if such rights exist) in their product.

Any database can have two types of protection – one for the “shell” (i.e., the structure) of the database, and one for the contents. For example, a database of paintings can have protection for the structure or selection or arrangement of the database, and each painting stored in the database has it’s own separate copyright protection.

The default position of the CC 4.0 licenses deals with all of these rights as a whole – i.e., it does not distinguish between the two types. All of the rights owned by the licensor (whether to the database shell or the works therein or both) are treated the same under the selected CC license.

So, for example, if the database is created by the author of the works contained therein, then the license will apply to both the database shell and the contents. This is different from the Open Database License, which only applies to the “shell”. Often times, though, the licensor doesn’t hold the rights to license the contents, so users of a CC licensed database need to be aware that a single license may not be sufficient.


It was clear from the discussions that even the participants in this CC Summit were confused by database protection and the applicability of CC licenses to data and databases. This does not bode well, since most “average” users will hardly have even heard of CC or sui generis database protection. It might be worthwhile for CC and other like-minded organizations to devote additional resources to public awareness in this area.
Read More