Some tourism experts have called for a comprehensive overhaul of Africa’s Intellectual Property (IP) rights regime.
They made the call recently uring a session on intellectual property protection rights at the ongoing Afropolis Lagos Festival, holding at the J. Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture and History, with the theme: “The New Myth”.
The experts advised lawyers across the African continent to analyse some of the major challenges undermining property rights in Africa.
They also asked lawyers to develop robust measures for safeguarding intellectual property for legislation by the parliament of respective African nation for assent.
Mrs Bukola Odoe, Special Adviser on Legal Matters to the Lagos State Governor on Public-Private Partnerships, emphasised the need for a unified legal framework on comprehensive intellectual property protection policies through legislative reforms.
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Odoe urged legal practitioners to collaborate and draft model legislation for presentation to the respective national assemblies for ratification.
The proposal, according to Odoe, was to ensure effective enforcement mechanisms, copyright protection as well as enhanced creativity and innovation.
“When it comes to protecting our artistes intellectual property, what comes to mind for me is cohesiveness, localising laws to suit our own local environment in Africa, understanding of what we need to protect, as well as exploiting this knowledge-base globally.
“Now, it’s very difficult for me to sit here, today, and tell you this is the best way to protect IP, very difficult.
“But, where we can start from is to begin to have deeper conversation about how to truly go about protecting our intellectual property rights.
“And not only that: beginning to localise the protection mechanisms to what we find in our own environment,” she said.
Odoe advocated the inauguration of weekly law clinics on company registration, tax administration, website design and other services, to avoid the activities of intellectual property cheats.
She urged state governments across the country to establish idea laboratories where creativity could be exposed to inspiring environment for inspiring authors.
Also, Rodney Borde-Kuofie, CEO of Rubikon, a cultural centre, said: “We need to engage lawyers to see to how we can protect and monitise intellectual property effectively.
“We need more people who are very versatile in this area of intellectual property protection to come together with government to begin to design the right policy frameworks to protect their rights.”
Heidi Boisvert, Assistant Professor of AI and Arts, University of Florida, U.S.,implored Africans to be advocates of intellectual property protection.
Biosvert, an interdisciplinary artiste, said protecting intellectual properties that relate with intangible art forms should also be looked into as Africa learns from other climes.
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