Geographical Indication (GI) options for Ethiopian Coffee and Ghanaian Cocoa

Chapter 10
African Patent Offices Not Fit for Purpose
Ikechi Mgbeoji
Abstract
This chapter outlines the findings from research into the capacities of African patent offices.
The research, which surveyed and interviewed patent stakeholders from 44 African countries,
found that most of the national patent offices were ill-equipped to discharge their two main
functions: examining patent applications and collating patent information so that it can be
made publicly available for public and inventor follow-on use. It was found that there was
a dearth of substantive examination, and record-keeping and public access to records were
poor. The research generated the conclusion that the weaknesses of African patent offices have
the potential to hamper technology transfer and domestic industrialisation on the continent,
and that there is a compelling need to re-examine the operational capacities of these offices.
1. Research question and context
Patents are public documents, issued to inventors by individual states, certifying
that the named inventor has been granted a limited monopoly to exclude other
persons from working, selling or using an identified invention without the consent
or permission of the inventor or her/his assignees or successors-in-title during the
life span of the patent. The regime of patents is built on the theoretical assumption
that, in exchange for a limited monopoly over a fixed period, an inventor discloses
the knowledge embodied in an invention to the state in trust for the public. Key
to this assumption is that society has a system in place in which experts in the
respective fields to which the inventions pertain have the capacity to:
●
Evaluate the merits of the claimed invention in terms of the well-established
criteria for patentability, namely: novelty, ingenuity, industrial applicability
and compatibility with accepted subject-matter classification (Mueller and
Chisum, 2008).